


The Argentinian Maneuver

by viviandarkbloom



Category: Last Tango In Halifax
Genre: Angst-lite, F/F, now with more olga, we will drink no wine before its time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viviandarkbloom/pseuds/viviandarkbloom
Summary: "We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here, and we want them now."—from Withnail & I





	1. when I met you at the restaurant, you could tell I was no debutante

**Author's Note:**

> So here's the thing. I meant to write something light and non-angsty for Valentine's Day, but as usual time and the actual thing got away from me, so here's a chapter of the thing and God knows where it will go, but it's not heavy or real angsty, so I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Timeline: post-series 4 Xmess episodes.

This time, Gillian wears the green dress.

In the weeks and months following her breakup with Robbie, it has come to pass—though not through any great foresight or planning on either her part or Caroline’s—that she meets Caroline for dinner nearly every fortnight. Just the two of them, and always the same place—the restaurant where they met following their respective familial meltdowns shortly before the holidays. Unsurprisingly she wears the usual plaid-and-jeans ensemble on these outings but this time out, she decides to tart it up. No reason in particular, she tells herself as she drives to the restaurant, just a change of pace, she simply feels like wearing a dress largely because she no longer has a fucking husband about nagging her to “look nice” all the bloody time, and an old Blondie song plays on the radio as she drives along and spring is coming and it all puts her in a good mood—but predictably she spoils the mood by remembering how much Robbie liked this particular dress and she does not want any memory of him tainting it for her, she does not want any memories of him, period.

Ten minutes away she pulls over, hyperventilates a little, then a lot, contemplates turning around and driving back home to change her clothes, realizes that she would rather risk Caroline’s ridicule than her wrath, and continues on.

When she arrives Caroline is already at the table, perusing her mobile and then gazing up at Gillian over her glasses in such a stereotypical yet nonetheless effective sexy-teacher fashion that Gillian crashes into the chair that the waiter pulls out for her with an obsequious flourish and spits out a curse as she tumbles into her seat.

Caroline puts the mobile aside and gives her the once-over. Then a twice-over. “Do you have a date later?”

The question is so disappointingly casual, and with so many strata of assumptions requiring so much excavation of meaning that Gillian sighs profoundly. Her initial impulse is to seize Caroline's huge, sack-like leather purse—and why is she carrying that thing tonight, Gillian thinks, it's ridiculously big and sure, she has to carry nappies and toys and various sundries for Flora but Flora's not here now so what's the point of dragging it along but God, women are impractical, and it's impractical to fall in love with a woman especially when it's your posh bitch stepsister and why couldn't it be that rich, lonely divorcee who owns that farm on the other side of the fell, the one who wears too much turquoise jewelry but who makes really good tea cakes and whom, Gillian is pretty sure, would be open to some sort of Sapphic sheep-farm merger, they could have it all, they could establish a lesbian-feminist sheep empire—the point, at any rate, is that Gillian wants to grab the gigantic purse-sack, hit Caroline with it and scream, _you're the date, you fucking numpty._

Once the internal rant ends and Gillian finally admits, if only to herself, the real reason behind the dress, she smiles as sweetly as she can manage and offers the most credible lie she can think of: “My good jeans are dirty.”

Behind her glasses, Caroline bats her eyelashes with breathtaking skepticism. “You have good jeans?”

While glowering at a menu she's already committed to memory, so much so that she knows she's going to order the roast chicken with nary a second thought, Gillian slouches in her chair. “Fuck off and order the wine already.”

Caroline fails to hide an affectionate smirk as she pretends to peruse the list. “You always make me choose.”

“You're picky, that's why.”

Truly, it takes all of thirty seconds for Caroline to initiate the parade of tics, hums, and martyrish groans that accompany the selection process. “Shit. Why do we always come here?”

“It's the nicest place closest to both of us.”

“Pathetic.”

“You’re not in Harrogate anymore, Dorothy.”

“This wine list is awful.” Caroline tosses it on the table. “Chateau Margaux? Do they really expect me think that's a _real_ Chateau Margaux? Chateau L'Armpit, more like.” She leans across the table and says, sotto voce, “Olga says these places aren't above faking it, you know—ripping off their customers by putting fancy labels on bottles of absolute swill.”

“We could have a couple pints if you’d rather.”

“I’d rather drink sheep piss.”

“Just say the word, that can be arranged pretty easily.”

Defeated, Caroline shakes her head. She picks up the wine list again.

Gillian laughs. “Olga’s spoiled you, she has.”

Caroline gives her another bespectacled, sexily academic _bend me over the desk and fuck me while reciting elaborate chemical equations_ look. At least this is how Gillian chooses to interpret the expression, which in reality is more along the lines of _how dare you bring up this woman I’m sleeping with but don’t want to talk about._ “Don't start,” she warns.

Gillian starts—and rather gleefully at that: “Come on now. Be honest. You bitch about her constantly but you're still seeing her.”

“I’ve got to stop it,” Caroline mutters from behind the wine list. The waiter comes over and, resigned to inferior wine, she orders a bottle of petit Syrah with a stricken look no doubt subconsciously copied or sadly inherited from her melodramatic mother. With regard to Celia, debating nature vs. nurture was pointless; both ends of this psychological conundrum encompassed a shit sandwich of dubious, bitchy behaviors.

As soon as the waiter leaves, and speaking of dubious inheritances, Gillian indulges in the shameless punning that her father is well known for. “Que Syrah Syrah, whatever will be, will be—” Gillian croons.

“That joke will never stop being funny to you, will it?”

“Nope,” Gillian shoots back cheerfully. “Shall we talk more about Olga then?”

“Nope.”

“Every time I see you, you say it's over. Then the _next_ time I see you, you've had it off with her _again_ and you've got an entire bloody case of pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon or whatever sitting in your kitchen. It's like you're a fancy courtesan who gets paid in wine.”

She is not prepared for the abrupt change in Caroline’s demeanor: Her face falls, as if she is a child promised ice cream for good behavior but is spitefully denied at the last possible minute before bedtime. “Oh God,” she whispers, “you’re _right_.”

“What?” Gillian feels her mouth hanging open. She knows for a fact that this dumbfounded, slack-jawed yokel look is not exactly attractive, because she’d seen it reflected in the mirror every bloody morning she was married to Robbie.

“I mean, seriously,” Caroline says, “what the hell am I doing? This isn’t me, this isn’t the way I normally behave. I know nothing’s been _normal_ for _two sodding years,_ but I never thought—” Her penchant for melodrama kicks in. “—I’d just be sleeping around with someone and just mindlessly accepting her gifts—like a whore. So I am a whore. A whore for _wine_ ,” she wails.

Gillian lurches into damage-control mode. “Caz, no. I’m sorry, really, really—I’m sorry. I was just taking the piss, so don’t, don’t—it’s ridiculous, you even thinking that. You know? ’Cause you’re always, so, so serious about relationships and stuff, and, and, I mean this thing is just, you know, a rebound, something you need, we all have needs—or maybe, um, not, I dunno, but don’t go thinking less of yourself because of some stupid, stupid thing that I’ve said or that anyone else has said, all right?”

It seems an appropriate, comforting thing to place her hand over Caroline’s; the world does not end and she does not instantly die of longing, but the contact makes her slightly euphoric and predictably this triggers more blathering, but with a strain of self-loathing twined in for good measure.

“You’re not like that at all,” she continues. “I mean, if anything, I’m the whore here.”

In response Gillian gets a protesting sputter.

“Really. I’m a whore. I’m a whore, a slag, a slagasaurus, a slapper, a slut, a trollop, a slattern, a strumpet, a scrubber, a brass rubber, a tart, a round-heeled woman—total, complete fucking whore of fucking Babylon.” Tirade accomplished, largely because she is running out of synonyms _,_ she notices that Caroline’s eyes are flickering upward and, following that glance, she finds the waiter standing attentively at their table, pen poised over his tab, face schooled impassively even while staring at suspicious hand-holding and somberly absorbing the litany of synonyms for a woman of loose morals.

Her hand slides away from Caroline’s and, surrendering to habit, she clears her throat and orders the chicken. Caroline orders a salad, largely because of certain comments Celia made recently regarding the size of her waistline, which means that after eating the salad Caroline will end up eating half of Gillian’s chicken and then insisting they share dessert, and on the way home Gillian will eat the emergency bag of crisps kept in the glove box of Land Rover because she’s still hungry.

As soon as the waiter walks away, Caroline bursts into raucous giggles. Reaching across the table she reclaims Gillian’s hand and Gillian decides this brief bit of humiliation is worth the smile, the laughter, and warmth of Caroline’s skin against hers.

Then with a squeeze Caroline lets go. “That was a very impressive display of vocabulary.” She nods at the waiter. “I think he may have a thing for you now.”

“Not my type.”

“You have a type?” Caroline teases.

Gillian leans back and folds her arms. “Yeah, I have a type, just like I have a pair of good jeans.” How her particular orientation got dialed over to _snotty bitch_ is, though, a mystery for the ages. She stares forlornly at Caroline. Or not.

“You’ll have to come over for dinner again soon. Because the wine Olga brought the other week—God. It’s fantastic.”

“Yeah?”

“An Argentinian Malbec, really exquisite stuff. Notes of currant, blackberry, hemp.”

Gillian hums and now contemplates stabbing herself with a fork, not just because Caroline is talking pretentious tripe about wine, but also because she has neither a young, attractive lover bringing her cases of wine nor does she actually have Caroline. Well, she sort of has Caroline—dinner dates and texts nearly every day and family get-togethers, it’s all there except for the sex part, and lately she thinks she can live without sex, which caused her nothing but trouble anyway, and who needs it when one has a vibrator and the internet at the ready? Then Caroline will do something as simple as give her one of those unrestrained, ludicrously broad smiles, the ones that fill out the dimple in her chin, or wear a certain blue blouse that is always unbuttoned more than the others usually are and Gillian finds herself deliriously absorbed in studying the constellation of freckles on her chest, or just bend over while wearing a skirt, and then whatever vow of abstinence, chastity, modesty, purity or what the fuck have you that Gillian has silently adhered to for all of two minutes goes up in smoke.

Despite her riotous feelings it is hard for Gillian not to like Olga, who is kind, good-natured, bluntly funny, and, frankly, easy on the eyes. Even Celia likes Olga, although Gillian is pretty certain that Celia operates under the naïve and delusional assumption that lesbianism only occurs if there is an explicit declaration made by one or both parties involved, or worse yet invoked with a curse in backward Latin or incantation of the phrase _lesbian spores_ in a mirror five times, and since Celia has not witnessed any of these things then obviously there are no Sapphic shenanigans afoot.

Nonetheless Gillian has a plan. Not just any plan but a Grand Master Plan, which is either the laziest grand master plan in the history of grand master plans or sheer bloody genius. Because basically her Grand Master Plan involves sitting on her arse, drinking wine, and making herself available to Caroline as much as possible while hoping that Olga, who seems to carry a torch for her insanely hot ex-girlfriend, will either reunite with said girlfriend and stop showing up unannounced at Caroline’s house for random hookups, or simply go bankrupt from giving Caroline so much free wine.

Confirmation of the ex-girlfriend factor occurred a few weeks ago during a dinner at Caroline’s. Having wrangled an invite from the merrily oblivious Celia, Olga was there. While Caroline cooked and pointedly ignored her, she and Gillian—much to their hostess’s consternation—finished off a bottle of cabernet franc together and while out of the range of Caroline’s superlative, headmistressy hearing, she showed Gillian a photo on her mobile of the bikini-clad ex-girlfriend on the beach at Costa del Sol.

Without thinking Gillian had commented favorably on the ex’s tits, thus foolishly revealing a partiality to women that she had hoped to keep to herself because Christ knows what Olga would say to Caroline, and part of her Grand Master Plan is keeping her sexuality a Trojan horse for as long as possible. She thinks of it as beneficial strategy even while conceding to herself that she is, at times, so utterly scared shitless about what she feels for Caroline that the mere thought of even admitting to anyone that on occasion she fancies women would be a slippery slope to standing outside Caroline’s house in the rain with a boombox playing some shit love song.

Back in the three-dimensional world, Gillian blinks and realizes Caroline has stopped saying twatty things about wine and that, having committed to the salad, she now has regrets. “Bloody stupid salad. What did you get again?”

“Chicken.”

“When the food comes—do you want to switch?”

“What do you think I am, a rabbit? I work on a farm. I need proper food.”

Caroline sighs. “Why do I listen to my mother?” The rhetorical question leads, of course, to bitching about Celia, who has grown increasingly Norma Desmond-like as she gets more involved in the local theater; this continues for nearly half an hour or, in wine time, approximately one glass.

Gillian is ready to pour herself another when Caroline asks abruptly, “Do you think I should stop seeing her?”

“Well.” Gillian inhales the resins from the nearly empty glass. “It would be kind of hard, wouldn’t it? Since you live with her.”

“What?”

“I mean, if you haven’t completely stopped talking to her by now after all the shit she’s put you through—”

“I’m not talking about my mother, twat. I’m talking about Olga.”

“Oh. Way to change the subject, Caz.” It takes Gillian a bit by surprise, for Caroline rarely, if ever, seriously seeks her advice on anything. And with good reason, she thinks derisively. Fortunately in this case her counsel and what she actually believes align easily, even as both run counter to the current of impulses and feelings that course through her veins, because of the one thing that always remains paramount for her.

“I think,” she says slowly, “you should do what makes you happy.”

Clearly not anticipating this answer, Caroline blinks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Caroline smiles. “Then I think I will have dessert.”

Gillian returns the smile and makes a mental note to pick up batteries on the way home.


	2. Entertaining Mrs. Greenwood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some angst in this chapter, but no specific mention of abuse (sexual, physical, or otherwise). After this chapter it will be better, promise. 

As follows the current pattern of her interior life, Gillian usually finds herself depressed and discouraged after these dinners with Caroline—even more so when she dwells on the ludicrous banality of being a middle-aged woman acting like a infatuated teenaged cow. Her ideal conception of a midlife crisis had involved a Porsche and cabana boys, and not this. She attempts convincing herself that it’s hopeless to even fantasize about anything beyond a friendship and that she should just leave it. She’s obviously not Caroline’s type anyway and besides that, Caroline needs a genuinely good, useful, worthwhile partner—not someone who ticks off all the boxes on an audition form for _The X Factor:_ brain-dead trailer trash, drunken slapper, damaged goods. Olga may not appear the ideal long-term mate either, but at least she has a seemingly endless supply of wine, charm, and rather flawless skin. 

She had foolishly hung her hopes on the basis of one meager incident anyway, which occurred the day after she informed her father and Celia that Robbie was gone and they were getting divorced. One evening after supper she drove over to Caroline’s house to make the announcement and found their parents sitting expectantly in the kitchen awaiting her arrival, as if anticipating some sort of highly entertaining one-woman theater show—like she’s Carrie Fisher, bless, but without the talent and even worse taste in men. 

  
Caroline, already aware of breakup, also lingered in the kitchen. She leaned against the counter while nibbling digestives and with the same hawkish anticipation of impending emotional, intellectual, and psychological carnage that she displayed while watching _University Challenge._

   
The pressure was all a bit much and Gillian attempted calming herself by clasping her hands like a host at an awards show. “I’m glad you’re all here.” 

  
“You asked us to be here,” Celia reminded her. “And besides, we live here.”

  
“What’s wrong?” Alan blurted. “Are you ill?”

  
“I’m fine, Dad.” 

  
“Is Raff ill? Is Calam all right?” 

  
“No,” Gillian said irritably, “no one is sick—”

  
Celia barely restrained a sigh. “Is this going to take long, dear? Our little theater group is having a conference call later this evening to discuss our fall production. We may do Joe Orton!”

  
Caroline squinted at her. “Mum, have you ever _read_ Joe Orton?” 

   
“I know he’s controversial, but really, I’m quite open-minded.” 

  
Alan exhaled and made a show of looking around the room.

  
“What? I am!” 

  
Pinching her brow, Gillian was a second away from shouty swearing when Caroline intervened. “All right,” she said in her best headmistress tone while gently shoving Gillian into a chair, “Gillian needs to talk with you about something, so let’s all settle down and listen to her.” 

  
She gnawed on her fingernails, realized that they kind of hurt when she did that and maybe she should stop doing that not just for now but maybe forefuckingever, then Caroline provided the happy distraction of a cuppa. She slurped the tea quickly, took a breath, and plowed through: “Okay, I wanted to tell you—I mean, I’m all right, really, but, um, it’s Robbie and I—well, it’s, it’s over. We’re getting divorced and he’s moving out, leaving. Well, actually, he’s, he’s left already. He’s emigrating. To Canada.”

  
The moment did not have the huge dramatic impact she anticipated, probably because they knew as well as anyone that things were not right, had never been right between her and Robbie since the day they married. And even before then. 

  
“Oh,” Celia said. She sipped her tea. 

  
Alan, however, managed a bit more surprise, as well as the additional bonus of genuine concern. “But why? Did something happen?” 

  
“No, not really, it’s just, you know, a build-up of a bunch of things.” 

  
Alan persisted. “Like what?” 

  
“Like, like—” Helpless, she glanced back at Caroline, who gave an exaggerated, _what can I do, you never listen to me and as a result you’re in the shit now and I hereby retire as your unofficial life coach_ shrug.

  
“It’s—he fell in love with someone else.” Gillian blurted out the lie.

  
Then Caroline mimed blowing her brains out by pointing two fingers at her own head and dropping the imaginary hammer of her thumb.

      
Alan looked gobsmacked but unfortunately Celia was now interested in the soap opera unfolding before her: “Really?” she squealed. 

  
“Yeah, see, that’s, that’s why he’s moving to Canada. She lives there. She’s law enforcement too—it’s how they met. On a chat board for um, coppers and the like. She’s, ah, a Canadian Mountie. Her name is Molson—Gladys Molson.” 

  
Increasingly alarmed, Caroline frantically whisked her hand across her throat and mouthed _shut it down_ at Gillian. 

  
“How did you find out?” Celia asked. 

  
Alas, it was too late and Gillian was off to the races. “On computer, he was, he was, dumb enough to leave his email open one day and I saw it. Bloody eejit. They were having, you know, sex online—cybersex. I confronted him and he admitted it. He swore he would dump her and that we would try to work on things, and we did—we tried. I mean, we really, really worked so very, very hard on it—the relationship. I tried but I felt humiliated. I mean, he, he—” Gillian lowered her voice. “—he wanted me to do certain things that reminded him of her.” 

  
Celia leaned forward. Alan recoiled. Caroline ate more biscuits.

  
“Like, he, he—he wanted me dress up as a Mountie. And God help me, I did. The whole bit. The hat, the red uni. Spurs—yeah. Spurs. Spurs and everything.”

  
Celia murmured, “That’s quite a bit of information, Gillian.” Alan made a dyspeptic sound of distress. Caroline frowned into the void of the empty biscuit box. 

  
“But it was hopeless, just hopeless.” Gillian took a deep breath. “So I told him to go! Go to Saskatchewan to be with her.” She flung out an arm in what she hoped was the general direction of Saskatchewan. “’Cause I thought it were no good, keeping him here, hanging on to him, us both being unhappy. I kept thinking, you know, of um—you know, what Sting says.” She paused dramatically. 

  
“‘De do do do, de da da da?’” offered Caroline from the peanut gallery. 

  
Gillian glared at her. “If you love someone,” she intoned slowly, “set them free.”  
A dramatic downward head turn—immaculately copied from Mary Astor playing the femme fatale in _The Maltese Falcon_ and conveying shame, vulnerability, and the desire for an Oscar—signaled the end of the performance.

  
There was no applause, but Celia patted her hand and said, “You did the right thing, love.”

  
Scowling, Alan folded his arms. “Why, that bloody tosser!” 

  
This seemed the final and most appropriate word on the matter. 

  
Thirty seconds of silence in mourning of Gillian’s now-terminated marriage followed, before Caroline offered more tea to everyone. Gillian wanted either a good stiff drink or the opportunity to roll around in a padded room and scream until hoarse, but dutifully she drank her tea while her father and Celia commenced discussion of matters Canadian. 

  
“Do Mounties still wear spurs? Ride horses and such?” Alan mused.

  
“I don’t know,” replied Celia, “but it’s got me in mind of that old song—do you know the one I’m thinking of, love? The one about spurs, one of those cowboy fellas sang it—”

  
“Oh, I know which one you mean—think it was Gene Autry!”

  
Then to Gillian’s consummate horror, they both started to sing it:

 _I’ve got spurs that jingle jangle jingle_  
As I go ridin’ merrily along  
And they sing, ‘Oh ain't you glad you're single?’  
And that song ain't so very far from wrong

By the time they decided to go play it on the piano in the other room, Gillian was face down on the kitchen table groaning and yearning for imminent death, whiskey, or both. 

  
“Think you’ll get a BAFTA for that performance, Dame Gillian. At least the worst is over now,” Caroline said. 

  
“You’ve got a bloody fucking geriatric musical going on in your house and you think the worst is over?”

  
“Kind of a catchy tune, don’t you think? It could be your theme song. But guess what—I’ve got a prezzie for you.” Caroline opened the refrigerator and started rummaging around in it, all while singing along tunelessly— _oh ain’t you glad you’re single?_ —to the accompaniment of the voices and piano from the living room. As the digging intensified she bent over and not that Gillian needed confirmation—well yes, she desperately needed it, so very very much—but this simple gesture granted ample, curvy corroboration that Caroline’s ass looked as stunning in jeans as it did in a tight posh bitch skirt.

  
God hates me, Gillian thought. “Oh yes, you do have something for me all right.” As she said this aloud, she amended her previous thought to, God hates me and I’m a pillock.

  
“What?” 

  
“Gesundheit.”  

  
“Shit, I thought I threw out that yogurt—wait, wait, here we go, ah!” Caroline pulled a bottle out of the fridge and triumphantly slammed it on the table in front of Gillian. “Check it!”

  
It was a bottle of Dom Perignon, glistening and enchanted, glowing and throbbing like a bounty of trapped fireflies and sweating as gloriously as David Beckham in an ad campaign where he’s playing footy in his underwear and most likely high off his tits because he has realized he has no singular purpose in life anymore except to reflect upon the psychological damage he inflicted upon his children because of their daft names. 

  
“Told Olga we needed something good to celebrate your divorce,” Caroline said. “Pretty sweet, eh?”  

    
“It is.” Gillian nodded at the bottle, which she now wanted to marry more than she ever wanted to marry an actual living person in her entire life. “What depraved sex act did you have to do for that?” she asked Caroline.  She did not really want to know. Well, she did. But she didn’t. _Well._

  
“Oh, nothing too traumatic,” Caroline replied breezily. “Just dressed up as a Canadian Mountie. Spurs and everything! I hear it’s all the rage now.” 

  
Gillian’s mouth twitched. She drummed the table. “Left m’self wide open for that, didn’t I?”

  
“You did indeed. Your imagination is truly frightening at times.” Caroline pulled out champagne flutes from a cupboard. “Come on, grab the bottle, let’s go outside. Hurry—my mother can smell champagne at twenty paces.” 

  
“It’s cold out.”

  
“Oh listen to you, super-butch farmer whining about the cold.” Caroline grabbed her hand and tugged and again Gillian thought of fireflies, except this time she imagined them wreaking glowing havoc in her stomach, in her veins, and setting forth on a fluttery mission to besiege the chambers of her heart and she supposed Caroline was right, she had a ridiculous imagination. 

  
Outside they popped the cork with happy shouts and the champagne froth glinted silver-pale against the deep blue scrim of evening. Gillian greedily gulped from the bottle while Caroline went inside to fetch her something warm to wear. She brought out some huge, bright, puffy-ish jacket, obviously Lawrence’s because it reeked of teenage boy. After two glasses, and while comically swaddled in the ridiculous coat, Gillian lay down on the picnic table and stared up at the stars. Caroline was saying something about the stars and how the night sky seemed brighter here than in Harrogate, how she liked bringing Flora out here to look at the stars sometimes, and how doing so was sometimes the best part of her day—and here Gillian was all too aware of holding her breath, as if a plume of air would rend the fabric of moment beyond repair, but even in her happiness she was too acutely aware of that last bit from Caroline, that sometimes the day’s end was its best part. 

  
“Is work all right?” she asked with characteristic bluntness. 

  
“Yeah. It’s fine.” _Fine_ was never fine with Caroline, but she did not interrupt. “It’s a challenge. I need that. But hey, I think I have street cred at last.”

  
Gillian sputtered with laughter. “S-street cred?”  
  


“Yeah. Street cred.”

  
“You go on a drug run with your students?”

  
“No, just told one of them to fuck off. Felt very satisfying. If I’d still been at Sulgrave I would’ve been sacked on the spot.” 

  
“Street cred. Streeeeet cred.” 

  
“Yeah.” This said somewhat defensively. 

  
“Caz?”

  
“What?”

  
A giggle as frothily potent as the champagne just consumed bubbled through Gillian. “The thing about street cred is, is, the second you say ‘street cred’—you don’t fucking have any.” 

  
By the time she finished the sentence she was laughing so hard she nearly rolled off the picnic table and would have if not for Caroline, doubled over with laughter, leaning against her and blocking the descent. 

  
Then the inevitable Celia bellow from a doorway only prolonged the laughing fit: “What on earth are you two doing out there? It’s freezing out!”

  
It was freezing, and once inside a decision was made to consume more alcohol, this time a Chablis and Caroline went on about the notes of citrus and pear and its minerality and salinity and that pretty much put a nail in the coffin of street cred.  Driving home was then completely out of the question, so Caroline offered her the guest room—or “the tomb,” as Celia called it, because it was so relentlessly cold and drab—but she fell asleep alone on the couch after everyone had gone to bed and while watching the version of _Wuthering Heights_ with Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  She conked out just after Edgar and Cathy married, the last thing she thought before surrendering to sleep being _poor David Niven_. 

  
In the morning she woke to the sound of snoring, which immediately brought homicidal thoughts of Robbie to mind until she remembered that he was gone, gone, blessedly gone for good—and realized she was sleeping in the embrace of a certain snoring someone who felt soft and strong and smelled nice and who obviously had breasts of the nice, pillowy variety. A stiff tilt of her head and a sleepy squint verified that yes, not only was she on Caroline’s couch, but also on Caroline. And without the faintest idea of how the hell that happened. 

  
Untangling herself gracefully and without waking her hostess would be an impossibility. Particularly when a panic attack set in. Gillian twitched, squirmed, and flailed as she tried to slip out of Caroline’s arms. Caroline awoke with a snort and muttered “hobnobs,” then grunted in pain as Gillian then elbowed her in the stomach; Gillian flailed and squirmed some more, nearly lost her balance, and as she blindly reached for support accidentally latched onto Caroline’s face and narrowly avoided poking a very lovely blue eye. But even half asleep Caroline steadied her until she breathlessly clambered to the platonic lifeboat at the other end of the sofa. 

  
“Jesus Christ.” Caroline sat up, groaned, and rubbed at her back. She wore quite nice pajamas, a navy blue jacquard print with tiny white diamond shapes that screamed _Harrods._ Bleary-eyed, she stared at Gillian. “That was like trying to take a cat to the vet.”  

  
“Sorry. S-sorry.” Gillian scrubbed at her face vigorously; it was too early in the morning for compulsive apology. “Why—why’re you out here?”

  
“Well, it is my sofa in my house,” Caroline joked. 

  
Gillian said nothing; she was far too busy scavenging the rubbish bin of memory looking for a scrap of explanation as to why this horrible wonderful thing, waking up in Caroline’s arms, had occurred. 

  
“Couldn’t sleep, I came out to see if you were still watching that movie, because I have to say, Merle Oberon was pretty sexy back then.” 

  
Caroline always provided too much detail in her lies. Also, during the part of the film that Caroline had watched last night, she referred to Merle-Oberon-as-Cathy as a “pea-brained twat.” 

  
Disbelieving and wary, Gillian shook her head. 

  
Caroline smothered a yawn with her hand. She flopped back into the couch’s embrace. “You don’t remember?” she asked gently. 

  
“Fuck sakes, Caroline, if I remembered, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?” she snarled, and then felt so ashamed that this time she could not even muster up the obligatory but worthless _sorry._  

  
Caroline chose not to respond in kind. They sat on the couch quietly for a long minute in which Gillian decided the best thing might be to slink out the door right now and apologize later. 

  
“You were crying,” Caroline finally said. 

  
At this—confirmation of her nightmares bleeding uncontrollably into the lives of others—Gillian curled into herself. 

  
“First I thought it was Flora. You know how it is when they’re that age. Always puts you on edge a bit, turns you into a light sleeper. But it wasn’t her I was hearing. It was you.” On the pretense of stretching again, Caroline managed to scoot closer to her; Gillian realized there was no other safe retreat from physical closeness at this point except, perhaps, another country. 

  
“I wasn’t sure if you were awake or still dreaming,” Caroline continued, “they say you have to be careful about not waking someone out of a nightmare or a similar state like that. So I just sat with you, and you quieted down eventually, and, well, I guess must have fallen asleep out here.” 

  
_While holding me. All night long. You beautiful liar._

  
The rarified fugue state of Gillian’s nightmares contained details so deeply buried that she thinks even her subconscious doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Months ago after a particularly bad one she woke to find Robbie sitting on the edge of the bed, gawping at her with the helpless, almost childlike incomprehension of a man with no true demons, no formidable ghosts. This lack of depth became even more apparent to her whenever he attempted comfort afterward; his embrace smothered her so that she felt as if she were reliving it, this thing she could not quite remember, because it elicited that same feeling—a blind, terrorizing free-fall into suffocation.  

  
“I don’t always remember them,” Gillian replied slowly. “Details and such. And when I’ve been drinking—” She forced a rough laugh. “—barely remember having them. It becomes all part of the hangover then, dry mouth, head hurting.” 

  
“Does your head hurt now?” 

  
Caroline was now slouched even further down and ever so close. Their shoulders touched. They were burrowed together into the safety of the overstuffed couch like soldiers in a foxhole, the drumfire of the past blazing over their heads and at enough of a remove that the ugliness got lost and took a circuitous path leading to this time and place, this house, this woman and, if only briefly and amazingly, had contorted itself into confounding beauty somewhere along the way. 

“N-no,” Gillian stammered.

  
“Good.” She reached out and brushed her knuckles against Gillian’s cheek. 

  
Gillian’s eyelids fluttered and that mere touch sent her mind spiraling off in a million directions—sunshine, fireworks, fields of daisies, fields of puppies and kittens, kaleidoscopes, rainbows, champagne fountains, no wait, gin fountains, no wait, rivers of wine and pizzas as big as flying saucers coming to take over the earth, and _oh God if I get this insane over something like this, imagine, just imagine, what actual kissing would do?_

 _  
_ Caroline tilted her head and gazed at her quite intently. If it had been anyone else in the world looking at her like that, Gillian would have interpreted the look as longing or actual desire, or at least something tantamount to these states. But it’s Caroline, who is as elegantly complex as the chemical equations that she has admired and studied all her life. Caroline, who lost great happiness but gained a child in the cruelest bargain of her life. Caroline, who deserves far better than anything Gillian can offer. 

  
Then clamor from the kitchen—the whistle of the kettle, rattling dishes, Celia’s singsong teasing and Flora’s delighted laugh—as the house woke up around them, and the sunlight along the wall tilted at windmills of clouds and time. 

   
Caroline looked away quickly but rose from the sofa languidly. Gillian watched as she stood, arched upward on the balls of her bare feet, and tucked her hands into the small of her stiff back. She rolled her shoulders and shook her shaggy, uncombed hair with such force that Gillian smiled and thought of a sheep dog. In morning light and sans makeup the fine lines around Caroline’s eyes and mouth gained delicate prominence and Celia was right, she’d put on some weight recently, but who the fuck cared, she was beautiful, always beautiful, more beautiful and more important to Gillian than anything else and she wanted nothing more than to be lucky enough to wake up to the sight of this woman every morning for the rest of her life. But all she had was this morning. Even allowing time’s prohibitive schemes, it still seemed an extravagance she did not deserve.  

   
“Breakfast?” she said.

  
“I’ll help,” Gillian offered. She too got up. 

  
With immaculate aim and mocking glare, Caroline fixed her index finger upon the target of Gillian’s sternum and pressed, and it brought to Gillian’s infatuated mind that bloody old ABC song: _Shoot that poison arrow through my heart._ Tenderly she pushed and pushed that poison arrow until Gillian got the message and flopped into the heavenly bog of the sofa once more. 

  
“Not today,” Caroline said. “You’re a guest.” She grabbed the remote from the end table and tossed it into Gillian’s lap. “All that is required of you this morning is watching cartoons with Flora.” 

  
It sounded perfect, of course, but Gillian played along and groused about it. “If that is some sort of commentary on my intellectual capabilities—”

  
Caroline smiled and she was undone.

  
“—then you’re dead on as usual.”


	3. Indiana Jones and the temple of international posh lesbians

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hello. Remember that story I started over a year ago and never finished? Neither do I! Well, I changed the title a little and added a couple chapters. (And it should be finished sooner rather than later, fingers crossed.)

Despite convincing herself that this troublesome infatuation- _cum_ -true-love-hex—Yorkshire is thick with the lore of witches, and when you have the luck and drinking habits of Gillian Greenwood, it is quite easy to convince yourself that you are monumentally cursed—is now momentarily quelled, Gillian still runs true to form: By taking self-loathing and self-abnegation to the next level. She invites Olga out for a round of drinks, ostensibly with the intent of seeking her advice on the perfect birthday gift for Caroline the oenophilist—a brilliant move that compounds the sweet torture of discussing the object of her affection with said object’s unsuspecting lover, who also easily surpasses her in looks, stamina, and expertise in a field near and dear to Caroline’s heart as well as her own.

They are ensconced in a pub two doors down from Olga’s wine shop. Olga says it’s good business to be this close to a pub, because all sorts of drunks usually find their way into her shop and end up overspending on “shit like Asti Spumante or California chardonnays that are fit for polishing a toaster” as she had put it earlier—and as Gillian made a mental note to never buy Asti Spumante ever again.

“So.” With professional skepticism, Olga sniffs and sips suspiciously at the pint of bitter she’s ordered. “You want to get our Caroline something nice for her birthday, is that it?”

Meanwhile Gillian has already downed half a glass of some IPA with a fancy name she’s already forgotten—Blackthorn Dragon? Black Dragon? Thorny Dragon? Bitter Black Dragon? Dyke Dragon? _We know who’s on your mind, wankpot._ She nods with what she hopes is an appropriate amount of restrained, adult-like enthusiasm even as she fears her head bobs up and down with the sweet dopiness of a sheepdog, and once again she thinks she’s really hanging out with the wrong crowd. _You act like you’ve been raised by wolves,_ her mum always said. So maybe she should not only be running with wolves, but raising them too.  “She really likes that one wine you got her—the Malbec, was it?”

“Aw, yeah. The Argentinian Malbec.” Like a cat sated by a pot of cream, Olga stretches back, lazily sensual, and smiles with broad sweetness in fond recollection of whatever amount of raw, unbridled sexual activity the Malbec prompted. “Yeah, she really, _really_ liked that one.”

In response Gillian manages some half-assed control of a full-on body spasm, which means she smiles genially while her knee slams painfully into a table leg. She is beginning to suspect that the “Argentinian Malbec” is actually slang or code for some Sapphic-specific sex act or position and that Olga and Caroline have been taking the piss with her this whole time—well, the bloody joke is on them, Gillian thinks smugly, because they have no idea how eager and willing she is to try this Argentinian maneuver. _They have no idea how flexible I am!_ The other day she was doing deep knee bends while in the pen with the sheep—until Raff caught her unawares and asked her what the hell she was doing. _Strengthening my core for untold and potentially life-altering lesbian sex activity_ was what she nearly said, but it really does not benefit her to make herself look any crazier than is already assumed by the entire extended family.

Sex act or overpriced wine—and with the resolution of emotional restraint now fully abandoned—Gillian is all in. “Okay.” With the back of her hand she swipes at her ale-foamed mouth. “That’s it, then. That’s the one I want.”

Surprised, Olga blinks. “You want that for her birthday? It’s real pricey.”

“How much for a bottle?”

“79 quid.”

“Are you _shitting_ me? You gave her a whole bloody case of that!”   

Olga shrugs. “Got a good deal on it. And I wanted to impress her. Although,” she sighs, “in the long run, I’m not sure I really did.”

Gillian slumps, folds her arms. “You’ve just alluded to all the mad shagging that went on as a result of this Argentinian maneuver—er, Malbec.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Olga replies. “Once the wine wears off, it’s all back to the way it is—her giving me those ‘what the hell are you doing here and why are you wearing leggings and why did you bring me tikka masala when you know it gives me gas?’ kind of looks. Anyway, the case is almost all gone now—” Suspicious, she narrows her eyes. “—although I think she’s hoarding the last bottle. Even if I’d an unlimited supply of the stuff, I can’t keep her drunk forever.” 

Together they observe a moment of silence for world peace and Caroline drunk forever.

Until Gillian rattles the tabletop with the impatient drumming of fingers. “See, I’ve really got to top last year’s gift.”

“Which was—?”

“Toolkit.” Gillian perks up. “This really, really great portable tool set—so small you can keep it in your glove box or even a handbag! It’s got everything, and I mean everything—seriously, it was so fantastic I was tempted to keep it for myself, but y’see, she really needs it—”

Olga says nothing, but one dark, well-maintained eyebrow goes frantically aquiver with quiet judgment.

“—I mean, she don’t have a proper toolkit! Can you believe it? Reckon John took everything when he left but that knobhead don’t know a Pozidriv from a Phillips.” Gillian snorts disdainfully.

“You know,” Olga says thoughtfully, “you may not be a lesbian, but you’ve really got the gift-giving down pat. It’s like you’ve been married to her for twenty years.”

“Yeah? Thanks.”

“Wasn’t exactly a compliment, but let’s just roll with it. Anyway, look, I’ve got this really fantastic Australian pinot noir I think she’d like. Half the price of the Malbec. Excellent stuff. Hell, I’ll give you two bottles for the price of one. How’s that?”

Chin propped in hand, Gillian sighs. “Maybe that’ll do.” She nudges at her pint with a finger. “So what about you? What are you getting her for her birthday?  A vineyard in France?”

“Well,” Olga drawls, “didn’t know it was her birthday coming up until like ten minutes ago, but even so, I’m not getting her anything.” Prompted by Gillian’s puzzled frown, she sighs. “Look. Between you and me—I’m pretty sure gonna end it with her.”

Cautious and careful, Gillian straightens slowly. Despite Olga’s honorable intent in not keeping her lover perpetually hooked on expensive wine, it seems too good to be true. “Why?”

“My ex. She’s coming back to town soon and I think—” Olga busts out another huge grin. “—well, I’m pretty sure we’re gonna get back together.”

“You talk to her recently?”

“Nah. But we text.”

“So she told you in a text?”

“Nah.”

“Well, how d’ya know then?”

“It’s all kind of scientific, actually. Like, biology.”

Caroline once told her that the phrase “It’s scientific” is normally employed as random certification of elaborate bullshit theories by laypeople who wouldn’t understand science even if meteor showers shot out of their asses.

At Gillian’s dubious squint, Olga attempts explanation: “Seriously, mate. Trust. I know what I’m talking about. It’s all coming ’round my way again. It’s the circle of life, lesbian style.”

Intrigued—and, having finished off her ale, now officially tipsy—Gillian settles in. “Go on, I’m listening.”

Olga takes a deep breath and leads Gillian into a byzantine international network, a dark dyke web of relationships: Her ex, Jessica, had dumped her to go off with a UN employee named Tabitha, who was based in Brussels, and Tabitha had an ex named, improbably, Paloma but not Paloma Picasso and just named after her, who was Italian and also worked at the UN but at the Hague and owned a villa in the Abruzzo, and Tabitha was being pursued by Miriam, originally from South Africa but now a New York-based “Lulu Lemon executive”—here Gillian assumes Lulu Lemon is a video game because honestly, what the fuck else could it be?—and had briefly dated Paloma but they broke up and Olga then mumbles about “some trouble with a Danish flight attendant,” before confessing that she herself had slept with Paloma as well and was in dangerous possession of the flight attendant’s mobile number—and finally, following the impeccable circular logic that all lesbians are like homing pigeons, Olga believes that once Jessica finds out that Tabitha has slept with the flight attendant too because Paloma is a fucking blabbermouth, Jessica will finally be ready to fly home to England and once again nest happily with Olga in her smashing renovated loft in Hebden Bridge, although if they do move in together they might get the larger loft currently available in the building, the one with the marble floors and the Jacuzzi—

Wide-eyed Gillian feels as if she is Indiana Jones discovering a glittering temple of Sapphic intrigue only heard of in half-whispered legends and half-forgotten drunken, bawdy tales stretched out over the course of pub crawls that run through the sexual spectrum from the innocuous, boringly heterosexual to techno-throbbing lesbian wet t-shirt contests to leather bars—the kind of thing you wish you remembered when you wake up in the sunny oblivion of the morning after, on the couch and with the phone numbers of several women and one bisexual leather queen entered into the contacts list of your mobile, not to mention a selfie with the wet t-shirt winner, the smoky admixture of tequila and pot still lingering in your mouth, a hickey on your neck, wearing a leather harness over your t-shirt, and your young son eyeing the harness while asking if you’ve joined the rodeo.   

Actually, Gillian thinks, it’s probably for the best I don’t really remember that night.

“So that’s where it stands,” Olga concludes with a happy, satisfactory sigh, as if all that really explained anything except the fact that lesbians have it better, which Gillian always suspected anyway. “Jessica’s tired of this posh mucking about and I’m pretty sure Tabitha’s hooking up with Miriam now on top of it all, so of course she’s going to come back to me. I mean, it makes total sense.”  

It’s easier to agree than anything, Gillian decides. “Absolutely.”

Thirsty from spinning this grand tale, Olga deigns to drink more beer. “But don’t worry. I don’t think Caroline is interested in that kind of international intrigue, if you know what I mean.”

Some sort of internal red alert goes off—are her ramshackle defenses breached, has the Caroline-themed mess of her emotional inner life been ruthlessly exposed? So there is more twitching, more knee slamming, a few seconds of frantic nail biting, and a nervous awkward _heh-heh_ kind of laugh that Gillian thinks makes her sound like a serial killer trying to lure a potential victim down into a dank cellar. “W-worried? Why—why would I be worried? Caroline’s an adult. She can take care of herself.”

“Well,” Olga says gently, “I’m just trying to say—she has enough common sense not to get mixed up into anything too crazy. I’m about the limit of her crazy, really. But I know you look out for her and she really needs that, you know. She needs someone in her corner.” 

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.” With a forced shrug, Gillian gulps down ale and, as the dregs slide down her throat, spots her own empty glass on the table and realizes she’s finishing off Olga’s pint. “Shit. S-sorry.”

“No worries, mate.” Olga grins again. “Wasn’t keen on it anyway.”

“All right. Um, thanks. For the wine advice and—ah, the rest.” Having acquired mental whiplash from the comings and goings of the international posh lesbians, Gillian rubs her neck. “This has all been very educational.”

Funny, though, she’s never noticed before—how expressive Olga’s eyebrows get. Right now they subtly twitch with the fine attenuation of a cat’s whiskers. “Hasn’t it, though?”

 


	4. purity is for pillocks

Caroline pulls on a dressing gown, pours another glass of Amarone della Valpolicella, and happily flops back into bed.

Meanwhile Olga, still naked and breathless, stares at the ceiling while increasingly resentful of the fact that Caroline is being so thoroughly, annoyingly civilized about breaking up. Maybe the Amarone is better than she realizes. After all, it did score her a hat trick of orgasms this afternoon, so it couldn’t be as mediocre as its reputation would suggest.

Still, she glares at Caroline, who hums with approval as she savors her first taste of the wine. “There’s a hint of nutmeg in this.”

“That’s not the wine,” Olga says testily. “That’s my body butter.”

“Oh. Um. Works well with the Amarone, then.”

“Of course—that’s why I picked it.”

“Okay, I didn’t know you thought of yourself as something to be paired with wine—is wine-and-sex pairing a thing now?”

“God sakes, Caroline, I’m a certified sommelier from—”

“Le Cordon Bleu, I know, I know.” Done with placating, Caroline leans back against the headboard and contentedly continues drinking. “I am going to miss this.”

“Are you talking about the sex or all the free wine I’ve given you? Or both?”

Caroline gives her an amused look. “Need I remind you that technically you are the one breaking up with me?”

“I know, but you could act a little more, I don’t know—regretful, hurt.”

“I am hurt,” Caroline protests mildly. “You know that thing we just did is hell on my back.”

Sulking, Olga covers herself with a sheet.

“I’m sorry. Really, I do like you. You’re sweet, and generous, and lovely, and we’ve had a lovely time together.” Wisely, Caroline refrains from saying that she will miss the wine too. “Seriously, it’s not that easy. I’m a middle-aged woman with a toddler and a metric shit-ton of emotional baggage. My romantic prospects are not exactly legion.”

Olga snorts. “Might be more than you think.”

“Please don’t try to set me up with any of your weird posh set. I’m not going to jet to Belgium for a shag. I mean, if I can’t be bothered to meet you anywhere around here for a drink, or dinner—”

“And yet,” Olga retorts with a scowl, “you’re always meeting up with Gillian pretty regularly for dinner, aren’t you?”

“That’s different. I have to keep an eye on her.”

“You make it sound like you’re her probation officer.”

 “Well, if she gets kicked out of Chip and Dale’s Fish and Chips again, a court-decreed probationary stint will be likely.”

“God.” Olga groans melodramatically. “You’re so dense.”

“Is this the part where we argue to make the breakup feel more authentic? All right, then.” Like a referee in a football match, Caroline raises a hand. “Airing of grievances, let’s go: Those leggings you wear are a fashion travesty and an absolute affront to the glory of your body. Your turn.”

“You really are the master of the backhanded compliment.” Olga sighs. She has no recourse but to open Pandora’s box, the sole contents of which are a cranky, smitten sheep farmer. “Gillian likes you.”

Having expected a laundry list of accusations ranging from snoring, self-absorption, and checking work email during foreplay—and seriously, she thinks she should be commended for maintaining a satisfactory level of sensual groping while sending out an evite for her secretary’s engagement party—Caroline is puzzled. “Is that a grievance?”

“No, statement of fact. She likes you, numpty.” Caroline looks baffled. Olga sighs again. “She like-likes you. Like, seriously likes you.” Now Caroline sends a yearning glance at her mobile, which sits on the nightstand near Olga, but resists its charms and instead sips more wine. “For Christ’s sake! She wants to shag you, you bloody idiot.”

Caroline releases an epic spit-take that would do Danny Thomas proud, followed by a long merry cascade of laughter demonstrating that she is not at all upset over wasting wine by spraying it all over her dressing gown. After nearly two minutes of cackling, she finally manages a breathless response: “You are out of your fucking mind.”

 “I’m not. And thank you for not spitting on me.”

“You’re ridiculous. You can’t be serious.” Incredulous, Caroline gives it a smidge more thought and lands on the obvious, if inaccurate, accusation: “Are you jealous of her?”

Olga rolls her eyes. “Yeah, sure, I’m jealous of a sheep farmer who duct-tapes the holes in her trainers.” She shakes her head. “Don’t have a dog in this fight anymore, Caroline. I’m just offering this as a public service announcement, you know?”

“You’re dead wrong. She’s not into women. Gillian is as straight as an arrow.” Even as she says this, something within gives her pause. Since Robbie’s departure she has expected a sexual reversion to form on Gillian’s part and as such has mentally steeled herself for tedious tales of romantic rendezvouses in motor vehicles and toilet stalls with any number of questionable hairy acquaintances. Instead, Gillian has been unexpectedly quiet on that front. In fact, last Saturday night, when Caroline would have expected her to be out and about and having her pick of the finest in knobheads at her local pub, she was at home drunk-texting Caroline as she hate-watched the remake of _The Wicker Man._

Well, she thinks, everyone goes through a dry spell, and given everything that went down with Robbie, even the most casual of encounters might not appeal at the moment. She sits the glass of wine on the nightstand, lest Olga say something else that sends Valpolicella squirting out of her nose and, despite her better judgment, further pursues the ridiculous topic: “What, exactly, do you base this declaration on?”

“I’ve got evidence. Scientific proof.”

“Tread carefully playing the science card with me, young lady.”

“Okay, look, she wanted to buy you the Argentinian Malbec for your birthday. The Malbec! That wine is built for seduction—as you well know.”

Caroline laughs heartily. “That’s totally selfish on her part.”

Olga looks completely baffled. “Why?”

“Because it’s her birthday too and I’d be completely, utterly obligated to share it with her.”

“It’s her birthday too? The same day?”

“Yep.”

“Huh.” Awed, Olga stares up at the ceiling again. “It’s like a sign.”

“It’s a sign you’ve seen too many romantic comedies.”

Irritated, Olga glares at her but continues: “It’s not just that. There have been glances—the way she looks at you sometimes.”

“Oh, God.” Caroline shakes her head. “That’s nothing. That’s just the way she is. It’s those eyes. You get used to it after a while. She always looks like she’s either going to shag you or kill you when in fact she’s just thinking about how many curry puffs to order when she gets takeaway or if she needs to give an ewe an enema or something—okay, I’m making up the stuff about the ewe, I’ve no bloody idea what she does with those creatures except yell at them.”

“She looks at your tits sometimes. At first I thought I was mad, but she does. _I’ve seen it._ ”

“She’s probably thinking how fat I’ve gotten—my mother won’t shut up about it. It’s like osmosis, so now she’s thinking the same thing.”  

“Okay, your mother is a tosser and I refuse to believe Gillian would take seriously anything Celia says. Oh, one more thing: She always compliments you on your outfits.”

“I think she’s just envious that I dress better.”

“Do you ever listen to the things you actually say?”

“I think it’s better for all concerned if I don’t, which means you shouldn’t either.”

Olga groans again. “I’m telling you, she’s far gone. Right about now, she’d probably do anything for you.”

“She’d do anything for me because she’s a good person.” Caroline sips the wine. “But I think there are limits. She will never take my mother shopping again. Trust me, I’ve asked.”

A minute passes in which Caroline contemplates wine-and-sex pairings again and Olga broods.

“Hang on,” Olga says. “You have those opera tickets. Remember?”

She need say nothing further, because Caroline knows exactly what she’s suggesting and starts cackling again. “Gillian _hates_ opera. She would never agree to go.”

“But if she did, that would prove my point.” Olga shifts excitedly, the sheet falls away, and Caroline is more than happy for her to make her case in a state of increased, luscious nakedness. “Tell you what. Let’s make this interesting: Ask her. If you’re right and she won’t go with you, I’ll give you another case of the Argentinian Malbec totally free of charge. If I’m right, then you pony up the full cost of that case.”

“You’re insane. It’s not a fair bet,” protests Caroline. “I’m serious, she _really_ hates opera. Absolutely loathes it. We got into an argument about it once and she sounded like a fucking Marxist the whole time. She called it ‘toff twaddle’ and ‘pretentious shit to make the working classes feel dumb’ and then she went on about class warfare and I had to get her drunker before she shut up—and that’s always a huge, huge risk because when she’s completely pissed she gets really emotional about things, like Mickey Rourke’s career.”

“You gonna take the bet or not?” Olga challenges.

Caroline leans in close enough for a kiss. The scent of victory is in the air—or maybe it’s Olga’s body butter—and she smiles rakishly.  “How about,” she purrs, “if you lose, I get one more—”

“I’m not going to lose,” Olga replies sweetly. “And besides, I’m not sure if you can handle that position again.” Olga rolls over and grabs Caroline’s mobile from the night stand. “Right then. Let’s do this. Call her now. Put it on speaker.”

With a well-sustained eye roll, Caroline takes the phone and hits Gillian’s number. To her astonishment Gillian answers right away: “Heya, Caz.”

“Gillian. Busy?”

“Not too. What’s up?”

Blithely confident, Caroline dives right in: “Do you want to go to the opera?”

“Yeah, sure. When?”

She is stunned into silence.

Olga releases a pippin-squeak of laughter before smothering her face into a pillow.

“You there?” On speaker, Gillian’s voice comes through startlingly clear.

“Um, it’s—next Friday.” Caroline pauses before desperately throwing out what she hopes will be the coup de grace to Gillian’s irritatingly serene and quick acceptance of this invitation. “It’s _Parsifal_.”

“Gesundheit.”

“No, that’s the name—”

“I know, Caroline,” Gillian replies with a hint of weary _I know after all these years you still think I’m brain-dead trailer trash_ waspishness. “I know that’s the name of it.”

“It’s, like, five hours long.”

“I assume there are intermissions in which I can take a wee.”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll be grand.”

“Are you sure? It’s all about purity and redemption and I know you hate shit like that.”

“Purity is for pillocks but who knows, maybe I need to be more open-minded.”

 “Okay. Um, that’s—that’s great. So when we see you for Sunday dinner, we can work out details. All right?”

“Great. Talk to you then.”

“Right. Bye.”

The call ended, Caroline stares at the mobile, then at the naked, convulsing back of her soon-to-be-former lover who continues to giggle and snort into a pillow. “You bloody bitch. I can’t—I think—I think you’re right.”

Olga rolls over, still chortling. “You’re welcome.”

“I can’t _believe_ this.”

“You can’t? It never occurred to you that she might fancy you?”

“Not really, I just thought it was—I don’t know. She’s intense. When I first met her, she needed a friend, badly. She’s not close to a lot of people. So I just thought it was just—oh fuck, I don’t know what I thought.”

Olga’s moment of triumph diminishes when she sees that Caroline is somewhat disturbed by this, the revelation that her stepsister may have non-platonic feelings for her. Admittedly she never thought of the discovery as having negative consequences for either of them or their friendship because, like Gillian says, purity is for pillocks and—after having a long think on her own relationship with Caroline a few days ago—she believes that, although seemingly mismatched, these two stubborn, ill-tempered bitches would actually suit one another quite well. “So—you don’t fancy her at all? Never thought of her that way?”

“Well—no. She has a sort of coarse, vulgar charm—I mean, obviously, because men are usually all her over her like flies on honey, so you can’t help but wonder what lies underneath those cheap, torn clothes sometimes. Like if she has nice, soft curves mixed in with all those lean muscles or if she’s as firm all over like her ass—seriously, it’s amazing, you could bounce a penny off that ass, it’s splendid.”

Thus the penny bounces, spins, and finally drops for Caroline. “Oh. Shit.”

“Ah-ha!” Olga cries, relieved that she can be triumphant again.

“Oh shit.”

“Damn right, girl. Keep going. Let it all out.” At moments like these, Olga sometimes dreams of leaving behind the world of wine for a career as a life coach. Then she comes to her senses.

Indeed, Caroline lets it all out: “Oh shit oh shit oh shit.”

Olga nabs the glass of wine on the nightstand and gives Caroline a quick kiss—efficiently finishing off the wine as she finishes off the relationship. The final kiss is a pitying peck on the cheek rather than a long, passionate snog, because she knows Caroline will have her hands full with that one—and vice versa. Not to mention Caroline will be out of a substantial chunk of change very shortly. “Cash or check for the Malbec case, love?”


	5. a night not at the opera

 

  1. _**overture** _



“Are you sure you don’t have to pee?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying. You’ve the bladder the size of a peanut.”

“Did you see that line? I’ll be there until the bloody opera is over.”

“You’ve had two glasses of wine.”

“Why are you so worried about me going to the loo?”

“Because I’ve been trapped in a car with you when you’ve had to pee, and I don’t fancy sitting next to you while you squirm around and moan ‘oh, I’m gonna leak’ every five minutes for the next two hours or so.”

Noncommittal, Gillian shrugs and guzzles the cheap white they’ve been serving in the increasingly crowded lobby of the theater.

Without warning—albeit not surprising given the makeup of the crowd—they are assaulted by a tidal wave of gay: Tony, a former teacher at Sulgrave Heath who was now head at a new school at Bradford, swoops in and booms “Caroline!” in a formidable ringing baritone and Gillian, unaccustomed to such flagrant fabulousness—the closest incident in recent memory being Raff’s pink paisley oxford shirt phase—chokes on her wine.

Discreetly Caroline slips her a napkin as she hacks away and while Tony goes in for the Eurotrash Rico Suave kiss on both cheeks. “Darling, how have you been? It’s so wonderful to see you!”

“I’m good—”

“How’s the new school? We’ve heard brilliant things about Huddersfield since your tenure began! It’s coming around, isn’t it? I _told_ them you would turn it around.”

Mildly chuffed, Caroline begins, “Well, I—”

Tony glances at Gillian and smiles. “And who is this _delightful_ creature coughing up a lung?”

“This is Gillian—Gillian, this is Tony, he taught at Sulgrave a few years ago.”

The delightful lung-shredding creature coughs more, waves politely at Tony, and manages, “Nice to m-meet you. Er, Caz, on second thought, think I will—excuse me—” she gestures vaguely in the general direction of the ladies’ room. They watch her battle through an influx of opera attendees—a group of twenty-odd uniformed students on a field trip—for a pathway to the loo.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything?”

“No, all that coughing probably dislodged the gateway of her bladder.”

“She’s not the only one—I had to send Brendan to the mens’, he’s always such a pain in the arse when we go out. Anyway, now that we’re alone, let me catch you up quick on the gossip: Did you know about Michael Dobson? He was arrested for stealing his students’ underwear and selling it online. And Tessa Reardon was sacked after they found out she was doing pornos, she even filmed one at Sulgrave, do you believe it? The entire great hall had to be scrubbed.”

Caroline bathes luxuriously in schadenfreude while Tony shifts gears, as he is wont to do. “Darling,” he declares while gently grabbing her arm, “I’m so happy for you.”

“Me too,” Caroline sighs dreamily. “Sure, fire the grieving lesbian widow, keep all the hetero perverts—really worked out well for them, didn’t it? Fuck them all.”

“You are _so_ deliciously vengeful at times, I imagine someday someone shall write an opera about you.” He chortles. “But what I meant was”—now he takes her hand, indicating an uptick in sincerity—“I’m so glad you’re dating someone now!”

The pileup of students loom closer, the mix of too-loud boys and vocal-fried girls create a din reminding her unpleasantly of day-to-day existence—and render casual conversation nearly impossible.

Still, she attempts clarification of a relationship that she has no real clarity on. “Gillian’s my stepsister.”

“Oh,” Tony says blankly—because, in the din of the lobby a crucial prefix is drowned. He blinks helplessly. “Oh. My. I didn’t know you had a sister. And you’re—dating?”

“What?” Aghast, Caroline blurts, “No—”

He nods understandingly. “On the DL, then. Makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I know. People are so judgmental.”

Caroline now experiences total recall of the frustration that marked her relationship, personal and professional, with Tony: He was charming beyond compare but possessed a complete inability to actually listen and process information. When she had asked him to include a woman as one of his guest lecturers for a world history class he taught one semester, he invited his kundalini yoga instructor, who was sweet and lovely and did some very bendy poses that left little to the teenaged boy and middle-aged lesbian imagination, but not quite what one had in mind academically speaking.   

She tries again. “Tony, I’m serious, _listen_ —”

Vigorously Tony shakes his head. “No, no.” He holds up an elegant hand and Caroline is fairly certain he is admiring his own manicure while summoning forth every bit of tolerance learned through 20 years of psychotherapy and weekly chakra alignment. “No, no,” he echoes. “I don’t judge. Seriously. Two consenting adults—what does it matter, really? Happiness is fleeting, and so is love. It’s a gift, really. I tell Brendan that every day since we married, and I said it again when we stood above Lake Titicaca on our honeymoon—by the by, did you get that turquoise bracelet I sent you? The Andean postal service is dreadful—anyway, what I’m trying to say is, we are blessed. All of us who find love. We. Are. Blessed.”

The assault of clichés is too much, especially when entwined with certain dismal assumptions on his part: (1) that she is in an incestuous lesbian relationship, and (2) that she would ever wear turquoise jewelry, as if she’s some sort of goddamned hippie or, worse yet, that weird farmer divorcee who always makes teacakes for Gillian— _and oh my God, that woman probably has a crush on Gillian, and oh my God, I think I feel jealous about that._

Meanwhile Tony, frantic and uncomfortable, glances about for his husband.

Caroline recovers her senses. “Tony,” she shouts, “I’m not—”

“There he is, finally out of the loo!”

“Damn it—”

 “Listen, I’ll call you soon, you’ll come over to ours for dinner—and you can bring your sister-lover!” He winks saucily and dashes off, so quickly he does not catch her adamant denial, loudly declaimed in front of half a dozen teenagers: “I’m not dating my sister!”

For a long agonizing minute, the group stares at her. She stares back. A girl snaps a photo with her mobile.

“I have a Ph.D. from Oxford!” she bellows at them—just as Gillian materializes at her side.  

Halfway between irritated and amused, Gillian laughs and shakes her head. “What is it with you? Must you always tell people that?” She clucks. “Such shameless bragging. It’s a sickness with you, it is. Oxforditis.”

“Shut it.” Caroline crosses her arms. Attempting to waylay Tony at intermission to fix this mucky situation would be exhausting. And perhaps impossible if Gillian were hanging about, peanut-sized bladder notwithstanding. She would have to text him in furious all caps.

Gillian continues to take the piss. “You’re really insecure.” 

“If I wanted amateur psychoanalysis, I would have stayed home with my mother.”

“May be amateur, but it’s based on years of close observation of your snotty bitch ass.”  

The lights flicker.

“And now what?” Gillian glowers at the ceiling. “A bloody power outage? This building is like 500 years old, wiring must be shot—”

“That’s our cue to go into the theater, numpty.” She lays a hand on Gillian’s upper arm, just above the elbow and there is no power outage, no lack of electricity there: Gillian jumps and brushes her off with a startled, nervous _ha!_ as Caroline’s fingers twitch at the current between them, all too eager and aching to touch again.

 

  1. **_intermezzo_**



It figures, she thinks, that the real drama would happen at intermission. Caroline stands awkwardly in the row of seats, wanting desperately to escape to the lobby for another plastic cup of cheap bad wine, but instead serves as reluctant second in Gillian’s battle with her unrepentantly elitist tosser of a seatmate.

“—unbelievably bad form,” the man drones on, “falling asleep like that, not once, but twice! Do you have no respect for the artists involved? You’re not at a matinee for _Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2_ —”

“Oh, wow.” Gillian sneers. “Look at you, pop culture reference, so very au courant.”

“—you’re attending a serious cultural event involving artists of the highest caliber who’ve spent years training and preparing for a masterful interpretation of a significant work of art and you have to ruin it with your boorish, country-bumpkin behavior—”

“I said I was sorry, you stupid fucking balding pretentious shitstain!”

“Brava!” Caroline cries—and then, as the usher glares and frantically gestures at them: “Oh, shit.”

 

  1. **_duet for moonlight and moths_**



The Jeep Cherokee rolls down the quiet road leading back to Gillian’s farmhouse. In the ostentatious manner of a decadent queen, the moon holds court in the starry sky and offers the gift of the road, a ghostly ribbon binding the dark land.

Once deeper into the quiet night, Gillian had impulsively turned on the radio—which was tuned to a country music station, thanks to Alan. Days ago Caroline had driven him to a doctor’s appointment and allowed him free reign with the radio; his warbling accompaniment to old songs about honkytonks and Bakersfield and drive-ins was infinitely preferable to her mother’s bitching about piles and diverticulitis.

Now someone on the station moans tunelessly about Tennessee whiskey and a lack thereof and to Caroline this seems quite the comedown from _Parsifal._ Momentarily bored, she attempts to rewrite the opera as a country western song: _oh Kundry it’s so true/ I’m Parsifalling over you—_ then she glances over at Gillian, who remains in the same pouty sulk she has been in ever since they were forced to leave the opera at the first intermission.

Turned out into the beautiful spring evening, the giddy possibilities of a night not at the opera became apparent to Caroline: finding a decent place where they could have good conversation, good wine, good food—but this all sounded so much like a proper date that she hesitated, and then she thought of suggesting they just go on a drive, but that sounded blatantly romantic and teenager-ish, and too much for her emotionally stunted psyche to handle, despite the potential for snogging and groping—

—at which point, fumbling with her mobile while attempting to find some kind of alcoholic oasis nearby, she was startled when Gillian kicked at a post box in frustration and dropped the phone into a sewer grate.  As her iPhone 7 sank into a dark grave of Yorkshire muck, Caroline mentally played a funeral march in her head and Gillian meekly suggested they call it a night.

So the empty road and the lulling twang of the radio encourage more pointless mulling over Gillian’s feelings and also her own feelings and oh fuck, so many feelings—not to mention the extremely irritating invitation Olga sent via email for a housewarming party. To her complete astonishment, after their breakup a week and a half ago Olga and the ex were already going full on into delusional dyke domesticity and moving in together, into a fancy loft apartment with a spa bath. Frankly the spa bath was the only reason Caroline was interested in going to the party. Could she be brazen enough to suggest a threesome just for a chance at immersing herself into it? Could Olga’s flimsy serial monogamy withstand such a proposition? The bigger question: Could Caroline’s back withstand pleasuring more than one person at a time, or in rapid succession?

She glances at Gillian, who, in penance for the botched evening, has been quiet for the past ten kilometers while indulging in a favorite masochistic pastime, second only to sleeping with imbecilic men: biting her nails to the quick. But the moonlight, shadows, and the oddly entrancing green-blue of the dashboard light somehow transform her from sullen to thoughtful. How easy to Instagram one’s life without a phone—with only a photogenic subject at hand and a full simmer of emotions filtering the outcome. Gillian’s hair was tamed into a respectable bun, and she wore a lovely dress with what appeared to be a new cardigan sweater. In preparation for the evening’s events she had read a synopsis of the opera, watched part of a performance on YouTube, and dutifully quizzed Caroline intently about her musical likes, opera in general, and Wagner in particular; in other words, she had prepared with the laser focus of a socially awkward science nerd going on a first date. As a science nerd herself, Caroline held a mad level of respect for such dedication.

Then she realizes that the past few times they’ve gone out together for dinner Gillian also wore dresses. Surprisingly nice dresses too, the kind that made Caroline want to say, _why the hell didn’t you wear that to our parents’ wedding?_ Then it occurs that she’s been operating at a Parsifal level of cluelessness for a long time, and while sorely lacking in the requisite holiness.

_Oh, fuck the spa bath._

She breaks the silence. “I needed a new phone anyway.”

Guiltily Gillian sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.

“And, you know,” she continues, “I think the fact that you only fell asleep twice during an act of a Wagner opera is an amazing accomplishment. It puts you at an elite forefront of novice opera attendees.”

“This sounds like the kind of pep-talk you give your shitty students.” Gillian stares out the window. “‘Well Sebastian, you blew up the lab but you didn’t kill anybody, top marks all around.’”

“Actually, none of my students have ever blown up a lab.” Caroline is helpless in mentioning this particular point of professional pride. She awaits a crack about Oxford. Instead, Gillian folds her arms and sulks some more.

“I had a wonderful time,” Caroline says quietly.

Her sincerity is, of course, met with scowly skepticism. “You m-mad bitch, you don’t expect me to actually believe that.”

Caroline laughs. “It’s true. That was the most _fun_ I’ve ever had at an opera—I mean, I’ve never been kicked out of one before—including the time John got so drunk he nearly fell out of the parterre box. It was kind of liberating.”

“You’re really not mad?”

“No, of course not. Not like I paid for the tickets—my boss gave them to me, he had extras. I can at least tell him I put in an appearance. And quite a memorable one at that.”

Straightening up out of her slouch, Gillian runs a nervous hand over her dress. “Yeah, but—the phone. I’m s-sorry about the phone.”

“Not your fault. That was an accident.” Apparently it’s time to trade useless apologies: “I’m sorry that shit gave you such a hard time. If you hadn’t had told him off, I would have.”

Mere mention of the tosser at the opera reignites Gillian’s fury. “It wasn’t fair! He should have been given the boot too. You know, it’s ridiculous. They’re very strict there.”

“You called the usher a ‘fascist pig cunt.’”

“If you can’t take a little abuse you shouldn’t be working with the public. F-fucking wankpots, the lot of them.”

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have brought it up again. Although mum might be right—”

Gillian barks out a laugh. “Don’t start. Jesus Christ, she does one Chekhov play and she’s looking for psychological meaning and motivation in _every—fucking—thing._ ”

Caroline slips easily into falsetto imitation of Celia: “‘Gillian dear, it’s _fascinating_ that you keep your divorce papers in an empty Piccadilly biscuit tin! Could it be _symbolic_ somehow?’”  

It sends them into such fits of laughter that Caroline slows down for a while to avoid driving into a ditch.  

“God, your mother.” Gillian shakes her head while wiping away tears of laughter. “It’s a wonder you turned out normal.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Can manage ’em sometimes. Like—” Gillian takes a breath and pretends she’s looking at the stars. Maybe she is. “—um, like, you look really nice tonight.”

For a moment her ongoing fury at Olga’s accurate estimation of Gillian’s feelings eclipses the actual flattery occurring. _Fucking Olga!_ she rages, then recovers and volleys back, quite truthfully: “Thank you. So do you. That sweater looks great on you.”

“Thanks. It’s new.”

“Thought so.”

“I mean, seriously. It’s new-new. I didn’t buy it at the charity shop.”

 “Um, well, even if you did, it would have been a bargain.” Caroline replies awkwardly, and winces at this butchering of conversation—but no matter, they are approaching the turnoff for the farm, and none too soon because on the radio a soothing baritone sings something frighteningly romantic:   _Don’t let the stars get in your eyes / Don’t let the moon break your heart / Love blooms at night / In daylight it dies—_

With the Jeep at a purring standstill in front of Gillian’s home on this fine, clear night, now would be the perfect time to—what? Talk about it? Kiss her? Tell her she truly dodged a bullet by getting them kicked out of a five-hour opera at the first intermission?

Instead Gillian beats her to it, offering an invitation that opens up an alarming vista of possibilities. That it is stammered out in a voice so gentle and low makes it all the harder to resist: “Um, d-do you w-want to come in? Nightcap? Tea?”

 _Or me?_ Caroline supplies the unspoken option. “I shouldn’t.” I should. “It’s late.” It’s not late. “It’s getting late.” At least that’s true. “I have a meeting tomorrow.” Actually the meeting is leaving early to go to her superintendent’s monthly cocktail party where her cheeks will burn with joy from the combined effect of a strong Negroni and the saucy attentions of a colleague’s busty wife who likes to flirt with her just for the hell of it. “So I _should_ go.” The truth is she has been hit with a flurry of epiphanies not unlike a snowstorm of moths converging on a singular source of light: fluttering, elusive, and, in their totality, beautifully overwhelming. She needs time to think. And drink.

Visibly disappointed, Gillian rallies a smile. “Right then.” She opens the car door and dangles one leg out into the warm night. “So, reckon I’ll see you soon—”

“Wait,” Caroline blurts.

She freezes. The dress waves invitingly over her legs. _Oh fuck, she has really, really nice legs, why have you never noticed this, you monumental fool?_

“I just wanted to say thank you.” Caroline fumbles, and digs down for the emotion that she knows is there. “For coming with me. I did have fun and I know it’s, um, not something you enjoy, but it was really, really sweet of you to come with me and I’m really, really glad you did.”

The remnants of Gillian’s equilibrium dissipate. In an attempt at maintaining dazed eye contact— _and her eyes are absolutely entrancing too, why have you never noticed this either, numpty, why why why?_ —while gracefully backing out of the Jeep, she blindly gropes for a steadying grip on the doorframe, misses, and tumbles out of the Jeep onto the ground.

“Oh shit.” Caroline undoes her seatbelt, is prepared to bolt out and around to the other side of the Jeep when, with a gangly burst of energy akin to a flying salmon shooting out of a running river, Gillian leaps up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m all right!” She gives Caroline a thumb’s up and then frantically brushes dirt off her dress—and _damn it hell, her hands are so elegant, strong, and expressive, you have failed some sort of basic lesbian test by not noticing this sooner, you card is revoked, your cunnilingus privileges denied, you colossal fucking idiot._

“Um, yeah, so,” Gillian mumbles, “all right, all right, all right, it’s all good and um, I’ll s-see you soon, yeah?” With a wave and a bashful grin, she’s gone, limping up the steps leading to the farmhouse—Caroline frowns, hoping she hasn’t hurt herself badly—and into the embrace of the night lamp’s moth-speckled penumbra at the front door. 

 _Please keep your heart/While we’re apart/Don’t linger in the moonlight while I’m gone,_ the radio croons.

“Oh, fuck off,” she groans. With a hit of a button she is transported to the familiar, comforting drone of a BBC announcer talking about ant colonies. The Jeep turns and lumbers down the driveway and back onto the main road, where actual moonlight provides ample mockery of her current condition.   


	6. Occam’s sparkly gay jump rope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: fake Latin ahead.

As a scientist with a vigorous ethical code, Caroline is unequivocally opposed to all forms of animal testing. She has argued against it with a wide range of adversaries, among them colleagues, students, parents, Oxford professors, and a drunken astrophysicist in a checkout line at Sainsbury’s. But as a woman living in a world lacking moral absolutes, she finds herself in the helpless, desperate position of abandoning her principles as she prepares to implement ruthless and perhaps cruel experimentation upon a real live subject: _ovium shepherdess Halifaxus,_ the sheep farmer.

Plotting in the bedroom, she goes through a mental checklist before commencement of the procedure. Tight black skirt? Check. Italian pumps? Check. Fancy new sheer black stockings with retro seams? Check. Equally fancy eau de toilette that smells as if one has showered in the crystalline perfect tears of Catherine Deneuve then frolicked in a summer garden with sweaty nymphs while listening to the Hollies singing “The Air That I Breathe”? Check. The unwitting subject waiting downstairs to babysit an overactive three-year-old who refuses to remove a fake astronaut helmet? Check and check.

It was a simple plan, really. The parents were visiting Celia’s sister, so Gillian had agreed to watch Flora while Caroline put in an appearance at her secretary’s engagement party this evening. Caroline will go downstairs, strut, not-so-subtly wiggle her ass, get Gillian worked up, go to the party, come back early, find the child asleep, and the farmer still worked up. Then, happily, nature will finally take its course on a natural or unnatural surface: the couch, the kitchen table, the bed—at this point she only wants to get past the awkward preliminary stage of getting this woman to finally make a move.

Olga had stopped by the other day to retrieve some clothing items left behind—well, a thong and a vibrator—and had advised Caroline to be patient and allow Gillian to make the first move.

“See, I think you’re like a Fabergé egg to her.” Olga had said. “A really bitchy and mean Fabergé egg, but still. And as such, well, the egg don’t make the first move, see what I’m saying?”

Despite a fleeting urge to strangle Olga with her own thong, Caroline did see what she was saying. It would be important, and necessary, for Gillian to do this on her own terms, in her own way. Given the scale and breadth of Olga’s romantic liaisons, Caroline decided, tentatively, to heed this metaphorically dubious wisdom.

“By the way, you still owe me 250 quid for the Malbec case.”

At which point she ushered Olga out the door.

It didn’t mean that she couldn’t attempt to facilitate the process a bit, even though she hates that it has come to such merciless manipulation. But all’s fair in lust and lesbianism; it wasn’t fair that Olga wore hot pants and knee-high leather boots the first time she dragged over a case of wine, it wasn’t fair that Kate always wore those _ridiculously tight_ blouses every time they went out for those allegedly platonic-friendly drinks after work—so it is her turn to be unfair and deploy the best parts of her falling-to-shit body to their best effect, in order to move things along with a minimal amount of actually talking about anything of import.

Downstairs she finds Gillian in a perfect position: Sitting bored at the kitchen table, foot tapping and leg bouncing impatiently as she idly flips through the day’s newspaper. Hearing the slow, authoritative click of splendid Italian heels in the room, however, Gillian realizes she is in the presence of a predator, or at the very least someone who knows how to work a good pair of pumps; she straightens and quietly wills herself to go unnoticed, remaining unnervingly still and with the apprehensive poise of a cowardly mongoose ready to do a runner.

She blinks, she swallows. “Well now. That’s all, um, very fancy,” she mumbles.

“Really?” Caroline throws just enough oomph into her swagger as she fetches a bottle of water from the fridge. “Just felt like looking nice tonight.”

“You always look nice.” This comes across more as accusation than compliment.

“Thanks. Say, could you help me—?”

“Fuse box not working again?”

“No.”

“Oil needs changed?”

“No. You see, I’m wearing new stockings.” Caroline runs a slow, enticing hand along her black skirt.

“See that,” Gillian grunts, blinking nervously not at the skirt but the disintegrating soles of her blue Converses.

“They have seams in the back.” Do the pupils of Gillian’s eyes now flare with frantic arousal? She likes to think so. “So I was wondering if you could just check them—” Here she spins around in front of Gillian, bends forward a little, and offers up a generous helping of ass and legs that, if nothing else, should signal her availability to be slammed up against a wall and kissed and/or fucked senseless. “—and make sure my seams are straight?”

Gillian is silent for a good, solid ten seconds in which she struggles and finally manages to say several short syllables in a normal tone of voice without stammering out a fervent prayer of thanks to whatever higher power that has placed such munificence before her. “Um. Yeah. Good.” Another long pause. “All. Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gillian releases a slow, relieved breath, by which she regains an ability to crack wise under duress. “Can safely say your s-seams are the only straight thing about you.”

Caroline wipes the triumphant smirk off her face as she straightens and turns. “Aw, bless. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”

Gillian remains motionless, and with both hands digging into her knees, as if rooted in a church pew seeking repentance from a stingy God. Abruptly she slaps her thighs, startling her body into action, and walks over to the kitchen counter. A bottle of Aberlour scotch sits out, left there by Celia, who required a tipple or two before setting out on the interminable visit to her sister. Gillian pops off the cork with a thumb and Caroline mentally swoons at this improbably erotic action even as she disapproves of Gillian pulling straight from the bottle.

“Steady now,” she cautions, trying not to sound too judgmental. “You are babysitting.”

Gillian rolls her eyes and takes another glug from the bottle. “Should see how much I drink when I mind that she-devil granddaughter of mine.” She corks the bottle. “Flora’s a much easier time, I’ll say that. Even though you won’t let me order a pizza.”

“Eat whatever you find in the fridge. Because I don’t think anyone will deliver a pizza all the way out here.”

Flora chooses this moment to roar through the kitchen and unleash an incoherent battle cry of “RAAAAA!” while wearing the fake astronaut helmet that’s been on her head since seven this morning and which made breakfast time very difficult—there was still a smear of blackberry jam on the visor—and wielding a small foam cutlass clutched in one hand.

With arms folded and eyes dangerously narrowed, Gillian glowers. “Thought you said she’d sleep the whole time.”

Caroline nibbles her lip. “I may have, er, underestimated the amount of sugar consumed this afternoon.”

“Gill-lee-ann!” the child bellows from the living room. “SPACE PIRATES!”

“One way or another I’m ordering pizza later.” Embracing her role as a dangerous alien monster, Gillian stomps into the living room as Flora goes “RAAAA!” again.

Caroline leaves. She is at the party for two hours. When she returns home, the kitchen offers fair warning of chaos ahead: There is a piece of pizza, cheesy face down, splattered on the floor, and the liquid line of the Aberlour bottle is lower than before. In the living room she finds the long, rectangular coffee table on its side, as if it had been deployed as a barricade of sorts during a fierce space pirate onslaught and random toys are flung about, a perfect deadly trap for a middle-aged woman wearing expensive heels.

Not far from the battle site she finds Gillian sprawled on the floor, sound asleep and sputtering forth plosive snores with a plaid-clad arm flung over her eyes and space pirate queen Flora sitting proudly atop her vanquished, slumbering foe while happily absorbed in a DVD of her favorite film, _Toy Story_.

When Flora notices her mum she grins proudly and bounces a little, which makes Gillian moan in her sleep. “I win!”

Then she notices that Gillian’s ankles are bound up with a sparkly rainbow jump rope, the knots fat and sloppy but effective. She sighs. Recently Alan showed Flora how to tie some basic sailor knots and it is now glaringly obvious that despite the intricacies involved, Flora is master of some. She berates herself for not taking into account the truly unpredictable stealth element in this entire equation, the wild variable in her experiment: a too-damn-smart-for-her-own-good daughter.

“Scientists must use the simplest means of arriving at their results and exclude everything not perceived by the senses,” William of Ockham supposedly said. So, Caroline surmises, rather than hatching elaborate experiments I should have just tied her up with sparkly gay jump rope and let her sip scotch from a shot-glass nestled in my cleavage.

A vigorous shake of the head quickly banishes the dangerous thought—for now—and she smiles back at Flora. “You sure did, sweetheart.”


	7. the lavender teacake menace

“Am I the first to call you on your new mobile?” Olga sounds ridiculously excited.

Caroline stands beside the Jeep Cherokee in the middle of Gillian’s muddy driveway, and with a vista of the valley before her: blue sky mottled with clouds, green earth and trees emerging as wintertime rusts away. Also in the driveway, parked next to the Land Rover, is a vintage 1970s BMW; it must be Gary’s because she cannot imagine Gillian knowing anyone else with the money and genteel, middle-class patience to afford and pamper an old, expensive automobile. Why he would be out here on a Saturday, however, is anyone’s guess. The Saturday schedule at the Greenwood estate puts Raff and Ellie at their respective jobs all day, while Calamity Jane is looked after by her other grandmother. All this toward the greater mental health of their contentious matriarch, so that she could have what she calls A Day of F-fucking Peace—a misnomer because basically it was her catch-all day to do all the tasks she had wanted to complete during the week that were otherwise derailed by child care, hangovers, arguments with her son and/or father and/or Celia and/or her boss at the supermarket.

Once several months ago Gillian had mumbled that it would be “all right, I guess” if Caroline had wanted to come out on one of these precious Saturdays for lunch. Caroline suspects the half-hearted invite was issued at that time with ulterior intent—namely, Gillian wanted help burning the last of Robbie’s clothes left behind after his departure from the country (ancient rugby kits and several naff t-shirts, including a lime-green one that said, HEDGEHOGS: WHY DON’T THEY SHARE THE HEDGE? accompanied with drawing of said creature looking as if it had just consumed a dumpster rife with ecstasy tabs).

Out of emotional desperation, she has seized upon what she hopes is a standing invitation because something happened today that rendered her a bloody mess for all of five minutes in front of several faux-sophisticated young people, and it was all Gillian’s fucking fault.  

So now on the phone with Olga, she groans dramatically. And realizes she sounds like her mother. Which makes her groan again.

Olga wastes no time: “You fucked up with Gillian.”

One of the benefits of not having a mobile for nearly two weeks has been blissful ignorance of the world at large and Olga’s nagging texts and calls in particular. Fortunately Olga was unaware of her botched experiment and chose to dwell on other recent stupidities.

“Me?” Momentary outrage places Caroline’s vocal tone on the screech level, which prompts a wandering sheep nearby to roil and bleat in distress. Caroline flips off the sheep. “ _She’s_ the one who got us booted from the bloody opera!”

“Yeah, but you had a chance to let her seal the deal and you didn’t.”

“I know.”

“You had moonlight.”

“I know.”

“And some old wanker _singing_ about moonlight.”

“ _I know._ ” Not that she wants to put Olga in an awkward position, but as a compulsion masochism is hard to beat: “Has she said anything to you?”

“Didn’t have to. Had a pint with her couple days ago, she was all mopey. Had the long sad face like she does sometimes, like in one of those whatchamacallit paintings—you know, like a Russian saint? Me mum had one of kinda paintings when she was still going through her Olga Korbut phase—Saint Olga it were, in that style—what’s it called? Byzantium? Baroqium? Basque? Dunno, really, alls I know is Gillian had the sad old Russian saint face going on.”

Caroline groans again.

“You really sound like your mum—”

“I know, _shut up._ ”

Striving for diplomacy, Olga switches topics. “You coming to our party?”

“Not unless I get to sit in the spa bath the entire time.”

“You always make everything all about you.”

“Thought you got the memo on that.”

“I did,” Olga retorts pointedly, “which is why—”

Caroline sums up the entire conversation: “Yeah, yeah, I know. I suck.”

“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself, mate. I’ve only said good things about you to Jess. She’s dying to meet you.”

“Olga, for fuck sakes, we’re not living on some lesbian farm commune in 1972. I don’t need to be friends with your ex.” This time Caroline suppresses the Celia-esque groan. “I have to go. I’m kind of in the middle of something. I had an epiphany—”

“What?” Olga is alarmed. “Are you okay? Are you in hospital?”

“What?”

“Did you have an accident? What happened?”

“I’m fine,” Caroline says irritably. “Why do you think that?”

“Isn’t that a thing you get in hospital? An epi-whatever?”

“If I’m not mistaken you’re thinking of an epidural,” she replies patiently and, remarkably, without a trace of condescension, “and the last time I had one of those Lawrence was trying to jiu-jitsu his way out of my body.”

“Oh.” Olga pauses. “So what’s an epiphany, exactly?”

“It’s like an epidural for a very fucked-up brain.”

“Please come to the party.”

“We’ll see.”

“Bring Gillian,” Olga suggests mischievously.

“Fuck off, like I’m really going to expose Gillian to your MILF-mad posse. It would be like dropping Bambi into the middle of the Serengeti.”

“That sounds suspiciously like jealousy, mate.”

“Fuck off again.”

Olga cackles delightfully and thus ends Caroline’s first call on her iPhone X. Her first text had been from William, who derided her for buying an iPhone X. Fortunately she restrained herself from telling him to fuck off too. Wearily, and at the very least glad she wore trainers today, she calculates a path around the strategic piles of sheep shit in the driveway. With some careful sidesteps and one quasi-balletic leap she maneuvers her way to the front door and, as per their usual etiquette, knocks, opens the door, and bellows out a hello.

Inside she discovers Gillian standing in the kitchen not with Gary but a fortyish-looking woman with long, curly blonde hair who wears jeans, a down vest, and a large turquoise and silver necklace. The woman requires no introduction; Caroline knows instinctively that this is the infamous, turquoise-loving, teacake-baking divorcee now known in the cranky, irrational, and jealous depths of her mind as Lavender Teacake—so called because Caroline could not for the life of her remember the woman’s real name and that one time Gillian could not stop raving about how teacakes she had made with lavender were not only edible, but also _really, really good._

As she comes into the kitchen Lavender Teacake is giggling over something, perhaps the fact that Gillian’s cheeks are adorably chipmunk-full with teacake and her lips covered in crumbs. No sad Russian saint face here.

Gillian says, “Ay, calf,” which Caroline assumes is a greeting of sorts and hopefully not an incoherent shorthand for _why the fuck are you here, I’m getting fed, feted, and maybe even fucked by this woman who looks like she should be selling fake Navajo jewelry at a roadside boutique in New Mexico._

Given that her hostess is speechless with gluttony, the very amiable Lavender Teacake takes it upon herself for introductions. “Hi! I’m Allison. You must be Caroline—our Gillian’s told me _so_ much about you. I’m so glad to finally meet you!”

Lavender Teacake seizes Caroline’s hand. She has a strong, farmerly grip and the handshake sets her turquoise and silver bracelet tinkling like a doorbell in a charity shop. Even as Caroline thinks _goddamn hippie_ she puts on her most charming smile—the one she had always utilized to justify the increasingly outrageous cost of Sulgrave Heath to prospective parents—and purrs, “How do you do?”

Finally Gillian washes down the teacake with a generous swig of tea, coughs like a consumptive, and loudly clears her throat. “Al here was just dropping off some, some teacakes for me. New recipe she’s trying. What all’s in it again, Al? Rosemary olive oil?”

“Yep. Bit of _savory_ this time,” Lavender Teacake drawls flirtatiously. At least Caroline interprets it as such, and suspicions are confirmed when Lavender Teacake playfully pokes Gillian in the belly as if she’s some adorably fluffy little runt of a kitty—which, if Gillian were a cat, she would probably be. Caroline, on the other hand, would be the sullen sleek beast implementing chaos and tripping grandma down a flight of stairs in revenge for a lack of suitable kibble. “We’ve got to keep this one fed, don’t you think?” she says to Caroline. “All this working, working, working—why, she don’t take care of herself, don’t eat properly!”

Gillian gives Lavender Teacake one of those quick, sweet, shy grins that she parcels out on occasions most rare. Caroline thinks of it as the Gary Cooper Grin. Months ago, during a babysitting evening at the farm, with Calamity and Flora asleep upstairs—and, she realizes now, another massively squandered opportunity courtesy of her own raging myopia—Gillian insisted they watch some old movie on telly: _Morocco,_ with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper. Gillian knew, of course, that once Dietrich showed up in a tuxedo and kissed a woman Caroline would get invested in it, and after much prodding on Gillian’s account she even admitted that the youthful Cooper was as ravishing as his costar.

Tipsy and tired, she sat on the floor with her back against the sofa; earlier she had yielded sole possession of it to Gillian, who had twisted her knee while working. She could hear subtle shifts and variations in Gillian’s breathing behind her head; the sudden inhalations made before speaking, the sighing grunts as she moved around her painful knee, topped with an ice pack and propped on a tatty throw pillow, in vain attempts to get comfortable.

Onscreen, stoic legionnaire Gary Cooper watched cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich croon away. He smiled beautifully for a wondrous millisecond forever immortalized in lustrous black and white. Then it hit her. “He smiles like you do sometimes,” she said to Gillian.

Who shook the old, broken-down sofa with her raucous laughter. “You nutter. You’re completely shit-faced.”

“No, it’s true. It’s all so quick, that smile, like he hopes you don’t notice. But you do notice because it’s all so rare and lovely, and that makes it all the more special. You do it too, you know you do.”

Gillian said nothing but reached out and briefly stroked her hair; the gesture granted quiet acknowledgment of several truths at once. Those truths eluded Caroline because it felt so good to be touched like that, and it made her feel safe and comfortable—and strangely at peace. She could not remember the last time that all these elements were in prominent, true concordance within her.

It’s not surprising, then, that a woman taken so completely for granted by everyone in her life and who gruffly, routinely rejects self-care may quietly yearn for a bit of flirty attention, for someone to pamper and fuss over her. As much as Caroline detests Lavender Teacake’s presence, she understands the appeal of the woman to someone like Gillian. She also understands that if she doesn’t up her game and get her head out of her arse, she’ll probably end up on the extremely shitty end of giving Gillian useless romantic advice about wooing Lavender Teacake and she’ll have to trot out nonsense about Faberge Eggs.

For the moment, Lavender Teacake has won the battle; she rightfully earned the Gary Cooper smile and thus exclaims “Well!” with a smug, mission-accomplished air. “I should go. I know you’re busy, love.” She bustles toward the door and Gillian follows. “Tell me how that tiger balm works for your shoulder.”

Now Caroline knows she has gone well and truly around the bend because the mere thought of anything procured by Lavender Teacake touching any part of Gillian’s body causes a vein in her temple to spasm.

“Right. Thanks.”

“Your trapezius felt really tight today!”

Too late. Bodily contact has been made. Gillian laughs awkwardly and Caroline waits to be felled by a brain aneurysm.

“You really could do with a professional massage—and as soon as I’m certified in my shiatsu training—” Lavender Teacake wags a mock-threatening finger at Gillian and this small gesture sets her voluptuous frame in motion, as if her body is a Rube Goldberg contraption designed for the art of flirtation: her hips roll, she pitches slightly forward and sort of half-wriggles her cleavage at Gillian. She smiles one last time and her noisy bracelets mock Caroline relentlessly. “Goodbye, Caroline! It was lovely to meet you!”

“Bye. Nice to meet you!” This time the enforced, cheerful banality gives her a headache. Brain aneurysm, take me away.

Gillian waves goodbye, closes the door, and—seeing the arch consternation writ large across Caroline’s face—fumbles into her usual Gillian-splaining. “It’s—I got bursitis in my shoulder, you know, doctor actually said so, for real, and, and Al’s all keen on this message therapy, she’s doing a c-certificate and s-she noticed me rolling my shoulder a lot, and today she just grabbed me like and started massaging it—me—my shoulder. D’ya know, one time at pub she did this to a bloke—total stranger, mind—just grabbed him and started rubbing his shoulder because she thought it looked swollen or something and swear to Christ, she nearly started a fight with his girlfriend. So, um, you know, she’s just can’t help herself.”

“Maybe she’s polymorphous perverse.”

Gillian gives her an accusing squint. “Sounds sort of negative and judgmental.”

“Freudian. The ultimate negative and judgmental prick.” Even more so than me, she wants to add but doesn’t because she fears Gillian would agree with the assessment.

Gillian pours out fresh cuppas for both of them, busies herself with tidying the counter. “Want to try a teacake?”

“No. Thanks.”

“They’re good.”

“You’re the one starving to death, I dare not deprive you of any.”

Gillian breaks off a bit of one teacake and dangles the morsel in front of Caroline’s face, almost but not quite touching her lips and, steely-eyed, challenges her. “Go on. Try it.”

Helpless Caroline feels her mouth twist and quiver distastefully. She could take the teacake in her mouth and then spit it out at Gillian with a loud, defiant _puh_ such as Flora does with kale, but then reminds herself that she is not a toddler and she needs all the help she can to romantically compete with a baking, budding massage therapist with sizeable breasts.

So she surrenders. Gillian pops the teacake bit into her mouth and she tries not to focus on the soft, startling sensation of Gillian’s thumb touching her bottom lip. To her dismay the teacake is good; it is, in fact, probably one of the best homemade teacakes she’s ever had, but she’s damned if she’s going to admit that.

“Well?”

“Not bad. Bit strong on the rosemary.”

“Not strong enough, I think.”

“Ah. So you don’t think they’re perfect.”

“Not perfect, but good enough,” Gillian retorts. She gulps down tea. “So why’re you here?”

The touch of surliness puts Caroline off presentation of her long and winding tale. Shouldn’t have come, she thinks. “Was, um, out and about. Picked up my new mobile.”

“Can I see?” When it comes to technology and electronic gadgets Gillian usually possesses the fleeting, greedy intensity of a teenaged boy. Caroline hands it over and eagerly she swipes through screens and apps. “What’s the retina display?”

Caroline shrugs. “How the fuck should I know? It calls, it texts. I’m just its slave.”

“Looks nice. Always wanted to go to an Apple Store. Have a look at all the shit I can’t afford.”

“Well, they’re staffed by insufferable twats.”

“Don’t tell me you shouted at one of them.”

“Yes,” Caroline admits with a sigh. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Well.” She smiles briefly—but probably not like Gary Cooper. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

This gets a curious look from Gillian, who is about to launch into an interrogation when her mobile rings. She puts the new iPhone on the table and grabs her ancient, cracked Samsung. “Yeah. Heya.” She grimaces. “Again?” Grumbling. “Nah. It’s all right. No worries. I’ll fetch her. Yeah. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see ya.”

She rings off, grabs a jacket draped over a chair, and gives Caroline a wry look. “Want to go for a ride?” This said with surprising breeziness, as if she knows that getting out of the damned house would be good for them both.

“Sure. Something wrong?”

Gillian pulls on the jacket. “Well, Elizabeth Taylor got her head stuck in a fence again.”

“You know,” Caroline says as she follows out the door, “I really do hope you’re talking about a sheep.”


	8. wild things run fast

 

“So you had an epiphany—at an Apple Store.”

The Land Rover spits gravel, Gillian spews sarcasm. So far they have traversed two twisty, dusty, rock-strewn paths during this, their mission to rescue Elizabeth Taylor—whom Gillian has confirmed is neither a Hollywood actress nor a minor novelist but a real, honest-to-goodness sheep—and Caroline has no idea where they are, no idea about anything, really, except that due to the bouncy ride over rough terrain she expects that her ovaries are spinning around her uterus like pinballs at an arcade and she grows increasingly alarmed at a completely implausible theory that takes root in her mind: Perhaps Gillian’s seen _Goodfellas_ one time too many and the whole “sheep in distress” thing is a plot to take her to some remote location and kill her at the behest of the Yorkshire Mafia so that her house can become a meth lab and _good God, brain, the lengths you will go to not to seriously think or feel about this woman._

Gillian gives her a rather lingering look and the ovary pinball machine goes full tilt. If they were on an actual highway and not some bumpy dirt road banked by rolling bucolic hills, she would be screeching about accidents and road safety well about now.

“So,” Gillian prompts again. “The epiphany—?”

“Perhaps that’s too grand a term for it,” Caroline says.

Gillian’s mouth contorts in a frantic but unsuccessful bid to suppress a smirk. “Is it some obvious thing, then?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Like when you ‘realized’ that high heels are oppressive for women?”

She sputters out a laugh, and Gillian joins in. “Oh God—you? Fuck off, right now.”

A turn onto yet another dirt road—Caroline thinks by now the fucking ewe must be in Scotland—and Gillian gets thoughtful. “Aren’t epiphanies supposed to happen in like, you know, really amazing places? You know, like on a beach, looking out over the sea. Or a mountaintop. Or like Saul on the road to Damascus—although I don’t know what was so great about that bloody road—or like Bananarama says—”

“Wait, wait.” Caroline raises a hand. “What does Bananafuckingrama have to do with epiphanies?” And silently, to herself: _Why am I smitten with someone who quotes Bananarama?_

“You know, like ‘Venus’—” Gillian proceeds to sing tunelessly, in a girly whisper: “Goddess on a mountain top / Burning like a silver flame—’”

“You ridiculous twat,” she guffaws, while appreciating Gillian’s willingness—always—to play the fool for her. “There were no goddesses, no mountain tops, no Biblical roads, no seas, no shooting flames—”

“’Cept out of your arse?”

And in recompense Caroline routinely allows this woman to take the piss and insult her on a regular basis. Why? Oh right, epiphany.

The Land Rover goes around another bend and drifts to a stop along an incline. Gillian turns off the engine, throws on the brake, opens her door. “Well?”

Meekly she remains seated. “Well what?”

“Oh for fuck sakes.” Gillian jumps out of the vehicle. “Walk and talk, Caz.”

Caroline sighs, gets out, and scrambles a bit to catch up with Gillian, who strides confidently along a narrow pathway running parallel to a wire fence that leads up the gently sloping hill. The wind, sharp and cold, a bitter reminder that winter wasn’t that long ago, spills blonde hair across her face. Irritably she pushes it away, wishes she had thought to tie it up before coming out here. She has never been entranced by the romance of the countryside. No stalking about on the wiley windy moors for her, nor brooding in the dales or reciting poetry under an ancient oak. The landscape is something she’s always taken for granted; it is simply there. Nothing drives home this salient point more than being here with Gillian. For the moment she is merely a well-heeled visitor participating in an impromptu Take Your Stepsister and Secret Crush to Work Day. This is not only Gillian’s work, it’s her land, her life, and for the first time Caroline envies the depth of this heretofore unacknowledged connection.

With one long headlong rush up the incline she catches up, breathless, and begins her tale. “So. I’m at the Apple Store. I pick out the new phone. I tell one of the twelve-year-olds who works there—all right, he wasn’t really twelve but you know what I mean—I tell him what happened, how I lost the old phone. He asks if I backed it up and I said, ‘yes, of course, everything’s in the cloud.’ Easy peasy, he says. Everything in the cloud, download everything to the new mobile in a snap.”

“They can do that.”

“Well, they did _not_ do that. I lost some—data. And then I lost my temper.”

Gillian grins with eager anticipation, rubs her hands together; she relishes tales of Caroline the Good Behaving Badly. “What’d you call him?”

“A cunt-faced shitbag.”

Approval is granted: “Nice!”

“Or maybe it was a shit-faced cunt?”

“Think the first one works better.”

“Don’t quite remember what I called him because it was the start of a long rant about youth and incompetency and as a result I’ve been banned for life from the Apple Store in Leeds.”

“Aw, bless. But—you lost something important?”

“Sort of. Well. I didn’t realize how important it was until it was gone.”

“Was it that photo of Olga in a thong?”

“I never should have shown you that.”

Gillian clucks mockingly and trills, in imitation of Celia, “Just like a man, bragging about women!”

“I blame _you_ and your bloody Jagerbombs. Shouldn’t have had two of them that night—they make me do the dumbest things. That shit is _evil._ ”

“If I’d gotten a third in you, who knows what you would have—um—” This shuts Gillian up right quick, and Caroline, ever aware of the verbal landmine of things unsaid, is for the moment grateful for this.

At this moment, as the summit of the slope runs smoothly into a pasture, Elizabeth Taylor is in sight. The ewe sits uncomfortably contorted on the grass, the wire of the fence a glittering choker around her thick, pelted neck.

Gillian sighs at the beast. “Oh, you bloody idiot.”

Elizabeth Taylor bleats out the stroppy ovine equivalent of _fuck you, what took so long, and why did you bring her?_

Gillian pulls on gloves and gives her a nudge. The animal stumbles and stands. Keeping up a steady patter of chastisement— _right old numpty, you do this all the time don’t you, let’s have a look_ —Gillian straightens out Elizabeth Taylor’s stance so that she is perpendicular to the fence. Kneeling, she tugs and twists the wire until it gaps enough so that Elizabeth Taylor can slip the surly bonds of her capivity.

The ewe bolts across the open field and Caroline is astonished at her speed, at the beauty of her movement. She’s accustomed to seeing sheep do nothing but stand about doltishly in a pen or stumble around while cowed by a sheep dog. Not that any creature would look happy, free, or beautiful under such circumstances. Another useless epiphany, she berates herself.

Meanwhile Gillian sets about temporarily mending the fence as best she can with a small pair of pliers; Caroline thinks of the toolkit Gillian gave her for her birthday last year, which has remained pristine and untouched in the glove box of the Jeep since then. It’s as if Gillian had googled “gifts for lesbians” and, bypassing all the porn links and sex toy sites, landed on “toolkit.” She fully expects this year she will get a pair of Birkenstocks, a vat of hummus, or a k.d. lang CD.

She squints into the distance, yearning for a glimpse of the free sheep, when she realizes that Gillian is done with her repairs and is making a rapid descent back down to the Land Rover. Caroline hastens to catch up. Once Gillian reaches the Landy, however, she doesn’t get behind the wheel but rather hops up and sits on its bonnet, gives Caroline a nervously insolent smile while swinging her booted legs.

Despite wearing old jeans specifically relegated to lazy housebound weekends and rustic Halifaxian sojourns, Caroline opts not to sit on the grimy Land Rover. Instead she leans beside Gillian, who nods at the horizon and says, “Thought I’d give you a better setting for your epiphany. Which you still haven’t told me, by the way.”

What she beholds is something she’s probably seen hundreds of times, over many moods and seasons: Scattershot sunlight through the low bluish clouds and the high peaks of craggy hills, a patchwork of rust and green. When it comes to epiphanies, the day has been fairly generous. Because she sees now how beautiful it is. “Oh. Wow.”

Gillian is looking at her, smiling. “Really don’t get out much, do you?”

“Suppose one way of putting it.”

Gillian, patron saint of foul-mouthed impatience, bad impulses, and dubious decisions, doesn’t push further and Caroline is grateful for it, so grateful that she decides to go through with it despite Olga’s advice, flawless teacakes, and the odds stacked against them.

“I lost all the voicemails from my old mobile,” Caroline says. “Most of them were work things I didn’t care about. Don’t even know why I saved them, really. But there was one I’ve kept a long time. About three years now.” From the corner of her eye she sees that Gillian gazes at her with the utmost seriousness, and hastily adds the necessary clarification: “It wasn’t from Kate.”

“Oh.”

“It was from you.”

Gillian scrunches up her face in utter bafflement. Caroline wants to laugh because she wore a similar expression last Christmas for an amusingly agonizing twenty-minute period when William held forth on a paper he wrote on Roland Barthes until Lawrence started acting like a twat; she never imagined her sanity could have ever been rescued by a serious of increasingly gross fart noises.

“Me?”

“Yeah. You.”

“I don’t—was it—was I being drunk and stupid? Did I call you a mad old dyke again? I’m sorry. I don’t—f-fuck, I know it’s wrong, it’s stupid, I don’t know why I do it.”

“I do.” Caroline mutters aloud without thinking, and when Gillian reacts with a bewildered, anguished look, curses herself for opening up the can of worms that is Gillian’s execrable but now revelatory homophobia, a new facet of self-loathing. “But no. No. It wasn’t anything like that. You honestly don’t remember leaving that message?”

Dazed Gillian shakes her head.

“It was Kate’s birthday. First one after she—and you, you remembered. I took a sleeping pill the night before, turned off the mobile, woke in the morning in a complete fog hating my life and hating the world and everything and I turned on the phone and there it was. Your voice. Thirty-four seconds of you saying all the right things. You not calling me a mad dyke or a snotty bitch or a toff twat. You saying these things that, that maybe you were too afraid to say to me in person.”  

That morning. Another day of coddling grief as if it were a sick child: Frantic and despairing that it would never get better, that nothing else defined her the way that this did, this slick gray laminate over her life. She had sat on the bed, hand shaking, staring at the mobile. She almost didn’t listen to the message that morning, almost deleted it, thinking that Gillian was just going to say something stupid or bitch about Robbie or Raff or a hundred other trivial things that she wouldn’t give a fuck about. Instead she heard this:

_I know this will be a hard day for you. And you’ll have other hard days in there too. But I’m here if you need anything—today, tomorrow, whenever. Anything at all. If you want to talk, or just sit, or eat something, or go on a walk, or just have someone watch Flora for a bit. Whatever you want, whatever you need. It doesn’t matter what, I can do it. Just call me. I’m here. Okay, then. See ya._

“In the past three years I’ve listened to that message whenever I had shit days. Really, truly. The last time was when they cut me loose from Sulgrave. I sat in the Jeep and cried and listened to that message.”

“It—it helped, then?”

“It calmed me enough so that I could drive home and drink three glasses of wine.” Caroline looks at her and she’s blinking furiously against the shock of low sunlight.

“Okay. Yeah.” Gillian chokes it out in that way she has, that makes her voice thinner and higher. An exhalation steadies her. “I remember.”

“You do?”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s I—Jesus. I thought you deleted it straightaway ’cause you never said anything—not that I blamed you. Worst time of your life, having everyone nattering at you wanting to help and I just—”

Now she’s taking quick repetitive breaths—as one is trained to do in birthing classes in lieu of screaming bloody murder—and Caroline panics, looks around frantically for some sort of traffic sign or landmark. “Please don’t have a fucking stroke here. I have no idea where we are.”

The wheezing turns into laughing. “Yeah. No. I—won’t—I, I do remember.” Gillian drags a hand over her face. “I do. You know. I’m, I’m so used to fucking things up, doing things wrong, that I forget when I do something that’s—all right. You know?”

“I know,” Caroline says. “But—”

Apparently Gillian had thought that was the end of the Big Epiphany and now stares at her, wild-eyed and apprehensive.

“—what else have you been too afraid to say to me in person?”

The only reply forthcoming is caught up in the hoarseness of the wind. Gillian stares blankly at the sky and Caroline wants to scream _say something,_ but worries that already she has pushed too much and too far past every delicate boundary; it’s sometimes easy to forget that underneath the mouthy bravado, the rough charm is the woman who entrusted to Caroline her deepest, most vulnerable secret and who relentlessly, futilely churns away on the same broken loop of dysfunction because of that secret. This seems all but confirmed when Gillian finally slides off the Landy and takes a few steps toward the horizon.

“Your mobile number still the same?” Gillian calls back at her, without turning around.

Wearily Caroline runs a hand roughshod through her hair and sighs out a soft, defeated “yeah.” She is about to suggest they head back when Gillian pulls her mobile from her jacket, touches the screen a couple times, and puts the phone to her ear—head cocked, but with an imperceptible, attentive straightening of the body as she listens to a tinny, rehearsed female voice that blows back through the silent wind, and that Caroline recognizes as her own.

“It’s me,” Gillian says into the mobile.

Caroline can do nothing but stare at her back; the canvased slope of her shoulders, ponytail tugged by the wind.

“Don’t remember what exactly I said to you that day. Just the gist of it. What I do remember is, is the feeling before I called. Butterflies in my stomach, my hands all sweaty, my heart pounding. Because I’d realized that you—” Gillian pauses, breathes. “—you meant so much to me and I didn’t know how that happened, and I didn’t know if I could ever s-say that to you. I wanted you to know then that I wanted to help you, that I would do anything for you. But I also wanted—I wanted, I hoped, you would need me as much as I need you. Couldn’t tell you that then. Don’t matter none. Nothing’s changed because—because.” She pauses. “I still feel the same and I am still here. For you. Always. No matter what.”

She lowers the phone.

Years from now they will argue over who really took the first physical step, who made the crucial first move:

_You just stood there, like a fucking numpty._

_Well, I couldn’t believe you did that—took you long enough, you ridiculous twat, I’d been sending out signals—_

_You mean practically sticking your arse in my face that one time? Bloody tease. You’re lucky I didn’t take you right there on the kitchen table._

_That’s exactly what I wanted, you fucking knobhead._

For the official record, Caroline takes two steps forward as Gillian turns around and launches herself with crooked tender haste and, even so close—Gillian’s hand cool and curled along her neck, her own hands steady and firm on Gillian’s hips because wild things run fast and slip away into a vanishing point and who knows when they might return—

Even so close, they hesitate.

Her lips rest on Gillian’s forehead, a soft eyebrow tickles her chin. “That long?” she whispers.

The intensity of it all, the admission of something held in check for so long, sets forth a visible bodily shiver. “Feels like forever.”

 _Forever is a mighty long time._ That was another woman, another lifetime ago. Now she thinks: _You can do this again._

The kiss is sweet, good, and long, and for the seeming eternity of it she places other women, regrets, missteps, and grief into a romantic rearview mirror, putting enough blessed distance between herself and the past that who knows, perhaps this thing might actually work.

“Just like in a movie,” Gillian manages to say—quite a few minutes later.

Caroline takes this for high praise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the "telephone truth game" used to depressing effect (for the most part) in _The Boys in the Band_ (read the play, saw the film, haven't seen the revival).


	9. notes of currant, blackberry, and hemp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Concluding chapter! Thanks to you all for reading. :)

 

  1. _**the secret society of socialist knitters** _



A teacup stops abruptly during routine transit to Celia’s disapproving mouth. “You two want to spend your birthday alone? By yourselves?”

As surreptitiously as possible—which is to say, not at all, because Alan gives her a disapproving frown—Gillian gnaws sloppily at her fingernails as if they are chicken wings served at the tail end of 4 a.m. pub crawl while expecting the old woman to melodramatically fling tea in the general direction of her daughter, who just dared to put forth the singularly outlandish and ridiculous request that she and Gillian spend their birthday in a manner so desired by them both.

Well accustomed to a lifetime of hand wringing (“When I said Flora would be good at sport I wasn’t being racist! Kate was tall, wasn’t she?”), pearl-clutching (“Of course when you tell people you’re a lesbian they’re going to imagine unnatural sex things, Caroline, don’t be stupid”), screechy declarative sobbing (“I am at a stage in my life where I shall have cankles _until I die_ ”), and wine-induced blame games (“It’s your father’s fault you’re gay and risk-averse, you’re afraid of men and trampolines”) on Celia’s part, Caroline is unfazed by the querulous, accusatory tone: “Why not?” she challenges. “We’ll see you all for dinner later, at the restaurant.”

Celia remains confounded. “Whatever on earth are you two going to do for the entire day?”

Gillian pulls at a hangnail and squeaks in pain while Caroline clears her throat and feigns absorption in the study of a Meissen cream pitcher she’s owned since graduating Oxford. “Oh, no. That’s um, er, not chipped, is it?”

Alan picks up the pitcher and gives it a perfunctory scrutiny. “Don’t think so, love.”

Gillian finds it a feeble distraction. She counts on smooth talk and assured, persuasive arguing from her, her, what?—her lover, her secret girlfriend, her overeducated bedwarmer? (“Gillian, do you know that ten percent of a pillow’s weight is normally comprised of dead dust mites and their droppings? Do you really want to literally sleep in shit? You’ve probably had these pillows since Raff was in grammar school. I suggest new, hypoallergenic pillows made from—” and so on and so forth until Gillian fell soundly asleep into a mighty mite-y old pillow.) Future wife, perhaps? Even the most fleeting thought of matrimony—although she gleefully admits to herself that she’d marry Caroline if only to chafe Celia’s ass big time—unwinds one skein of anxiety and tangles it up into another, and so Gillian takes matters into her own mouth and shouts, with jarring and impulsive fierceness:

“Go for a walk on the moors!”

Everyone jumps, her father bungles the pitcher, and cream goes sloshing.

“Tourette’s syndrome,” Celia mutters, as Alan gives his somewhat beloved child a _what the hell_ look and Caroline’s voluptuous frame rises and falls with a barely repressed sigh.

Gillian lurches forward, mops up cream off the table with a napkin. “Didn’t fucking swear that time.”

“Anyway. Yes,” Caroline says, steering everyone back on conversational track. “We’ll go on a nice long walk. Do some baking, perhaps—”

“Teacakes,” she blurts. She has teacakes on the brain because Alison made these fancy blood orange rosemary teacakes for her birthday and, given that as long as a certain delicious headbitch teacher is in the picture it’s highly unlikely they will achieve that dream of a lesbian-feminist sheep empire in Yorkshire, it was right nice and lovely of Al to do so.

“ _Not_ teacakes.” Caroline sips tea, her eyes telepathic lasers offering sharp rebuke to Gillian’s continued culinary infidelity. This look, Gillian assumes, also means that Alison’s free shiatsu massage is off the table as well.

Oh bless, another thing to be anxious about. “Then, um, maybe we-we’ll do some shopping, prepare for Christmas.”

Because Gillian’s usual mantra from Guy Fawkes to Boxing Day is _I hate fucking Christmas,_ Celia is both puzzled and suspicious. “The holidays are months away—”

“Gotta be prepared, Celia.” Gillian guzzles tea, desperately wishes for a nip of brandy mixed in. “So yeah, shopping and we’re gonna buy um, some yarn. For knitting. Yeah. Knitting,” Gillian repeats, as if convincing herself that these stereotypical womanly activities were not only appealing but also things in which she naturally excelled. “Gonna, gonna knit Christmas gifts for everyone.”

Alan is dubious. “You don’t knit.”

“She’s going to learn,” Caroline replies confidently.

“Yes. I’m—I’m going to knit scarves and hats and gloves f-for everyone, and for war refugees too.”

Caroline flicks a covert _please for the love of Christ shut up already_ look her way.

Alan sinks deeper into befuddlement. “What war?”

“What war? _What war?_ There’s always a war going on, Dad! Jesus Christ!” Gillian is always quite pleased at how quickly spurious moral indignation rouses within her.

Celia tuts. “See? This is what happens when you read the _Guardian._ Young socialists are bred in this way. _”_

“Not so young anymore, love. Our little _middle-aged_ socialist is going to be fi—”

“—can we change the f-fucking subject, please?”

“Yes. Still waiting for Brexit with baited breath, Mum?”

“God’s sake, Caroline. Not you too.”

 

  1. _**The fucking subject is changed**_



“What’s in the bag?”

At last, it’s the day of. They’re at the farmhouse and Gillian has happily ceded control of the kitchen to Caroline, who is chopping up things on a cutting board and sort of unconsciously tightening her arse in a rather rhythmic and mesmerizing fashion while doing so—chop, chop, clench, chop, chop, clench—and the movement keeps Gillian and her filthy mind happily occupied until she catches sight of a glinting ribbon in a bag sitting on a kitchen chair. Hence the question.

In response there is a butt clench and wiggle, and a pseudo-innocent question: “What bag?”

“That big fancy ‘I’m a privileged cunt muffin who shops at Tesco and paid too much for a canvas bag because I feel guilty about the environment and I’m going to forget it the next time I shop anyway but fuck it and I’ve already got a dozen just like it at home’ bag.”

Caroline spins around and Gillian’s eyelids batter nervously at the flash of the knife in her hand—a momentary if alarming distraction, as a piece of perfectly cubed piece of cheese is gently tucked into Gillian’s mouth. “Try this.”

“Mmpf.”

As a chaser, Caroline adds a quick kiss on her lips. “Good?”

“It’s—what—?”

“Comte.” Another kiss, this time on the chin, followed by ones on the cheek, the neck, and Caroline’s hands tuck into her waistband and Gillian—as if she is a shopping cart at the same Tesco’s where Caroline bought her lovely organic hemp wicker bag—is effortlessly steered backward in the general direction of the living room couch.

“D-did you get me a gift? We decided no gifts, Caz, _not to get each other gifts._ ”

“I agreed to no such thing.”

“We discussed it _when you were here last week and you said ‘yeah.’_ ”

“That was approval of you taking off your clothes and not the shit you were saying whilst doing so—I mean, I could hardly hear what you were saying anyway.”

“Maybe you should pay more attention when I’m talking to you!”

Such misdirects and feints always caught Robbie off guard while arguing; but now Gillian spars with the best. “Maybe,” Caroline retorts, “you shouldn’t talk about matters of import while attempting a striptease to ‘Tubthumping.’”

“But I didn’t g-get you anything! And it’s, I didn’t, didn’t want you getting me expensive fancy stuff like a, a fucking Portuguese flannel plaid shirt made by nuns who live on a mountainside and sing and dance all the time—” The arm of the couch bumps the back of Gillian’s knees and they stop moving.

“Y’know something?” Caroline gazes at her thoughtfully and the tiny part of Gillian that thrives on acts of great spontaneity arches with anticipation as she expects a declaration of love, a suggestion to go sex toy shopping, or an admission that Caroline really does enjoy the _Jurassic Park_ movies despite ruining everyone’s enjoyment of them by ceaselessly pointing out every single scientific mistake in them. Even Flora bellowed _shut up, Mum!_ when they had streamed the most recent one.

“Wha—?”

“You’ve seen _The Sound of Music_ way, way too many times.” With a gentle shove, Gillian falls back onto the couch while receiving a sternly arousing headteacher glare. “Now stop complaining, and let _me_ open _my_ gift.”

Despite all protests to the contrary, Gillian cannot hide her disappointment. “You mean the thing in the bag is for you?”

Rolling her eyes, Caroline leans forward and decisively unbuckles Gillian’s belt.

“Oh. Okay. I get it now.”

 

  1. **_three hours later_**



 

“So what’s in the bag?”

Gillian’s fingers hopscotch along a crazy path of freckles along Caroline’s arm and shoulder. The late afternoon sun cauterizes a seam of light between the vertical gap of the bedroom curtains. Somewhere in the near distance of the sheep pen Elizabeth Taylor bleats a lonesome serenade of discontent: _I know you’re with her, Gillian. I thought we had something special. It’s not my fault you have hang-ups about relationships with my kind._ Hell hath no fury like a ewe scorned.

Having surrendered to the dust mite realm of Gillian’s bed, Caroline sleeps. She hasn’t been out long, but all the same Gillian finds herself ensnared in squirmy, happy restlessness, which leads to wondering once again what the hell was in the bag downstairs to the extent that she risks the wrath of a perpetually sleep-deprived mother of a three-year-old who also runs an entire school.

She gives Caroline an impatient nudge. The phrase _poking the bear_ flashes across her mind in silent warning as Caroline makes explicit the threat with a hoarse, sleepy grumble: “Keep doing that and you’ll lose that hand.”

Gillian’s touch strays further, soaring across peaks and dips of flesh, before conducting a teasing reconnaissance around the interior of the thighs as a reminder of how valuable those fingers really are. “We wouldn’t _really_ want that now, would we?”

“Why not? You’d still have the other hand.”

“Bitch.” Before wisely retreating, Gillian gives her one more petulant nudge. “I want to know what’s in the bag downstairs. You’ve kept it a mystery long enough.”

Caroline stretches, sighs, rolls over. “Give you a hint: It’s something we can both enjoy.”

“Ah—sex toy!”

Sleepily beautiful, Caroline smiles at her through messy bangs. “If I’d had, don’t you think it would have made an appearance by now?”

“Reckon so. But—” Then it hits Gillian with happy, giddy force: “You got us the Malbec.”

Caroline hums lazily in the affirmative and, for some inscrutable reason, is completely surprised when Gillian is on her with the stunning speed of a gold medalist in the Topping Event of the Shagging Olympics, and thankfully Caroline does not think about how many training partners and sessions were required to attain such mastery. Finally and fully awake, she widens her eyes as Gillian pins her wrists to the mattress. “I am really, truly out of my depth with you.”

“You got us the Malbec! How? I thought you’d finally run out.” This while quietly praying that sexual favors were not involved in the transaction.

“Money can buy happiness—well, in liquid form, anyway.”

“Are you joking? Olga told me how expensive it is!”

“She gave me—us—a birthday discount. I think it was a reward for surviving her housewarming party.”

Olga’s housewarming party had been—interesting. Gillian was flirted with, eye-shagged, propositioned, and witness to a drunken rampage courtesy of the happy couple’s mutual ex, who started a fight with another ex and was dragged out of the apartment by a posse of friends while screaming, “Lulu Lemon is cult, Paloma, and you fucking know it!” Tears (Paloma) and vomit (Paloma’s current squeeze, Ramona) in the spa bath ensued; Gillian took this as their cue to leave while Caroline took it as an opportunity to steal a bottle of cabernet syrah. Afterward they got ice cream and then drove up to Ladstone Rock, where under the stars Caroline had her first successful and satisfying vehicular sexual experience and Gillian had to come up with a story to explain the broken rear view mirror. (“I was doing yoga in the car, it’s the latest thing, it was on Goop.”)

“You know,” Gillian accuses, “you two had me wondering if an Argentinian Malbec was slang for some lesbian sex thing.”

“I see a combination of overactive imagination and wishful thinking here.”

“When’re we drinking it?”

“Thought after we come back from dinner tonight—get everyone tucked into bed, sneak outside, have it under the stars.”

“Very romantic.”

“Or we can drink it out of jam jars while eating chocolate and watching reruns of _Law and Order_.”

“Aw, bless, I love that you always give me a shitty lowbrow option. But—but can’t we have it now? I think it would perfect now.”

To her utter astonishment Caroline appears to reconsider her own rigid planning and opt for spontaneity; that Gillian has been kissing her neck and collarbone and working steadily toward her breast may have held some sway in the matter. “Well. It is your birthday. You should be spoiled.”

Gillian stops. “I should?”

“You should. Just have to do one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Get off me, you twat.”

She acquiesces and Caroline rolls out of bed, grabs Gillian’s old dressing robe, and, smiling, throws it on. All while Gillian envisions hundreds of similar awakenings projected into an even brighter future: the sun edging the floor, this woman smiling at her—

This woman, who is saying something to her. “Sorry.” Gillian blinks. “What?”

“I said, where’s your corkscrew?”

“Hanging on a nail over the sink. Oh. Wait.”

“No?”

“Might just be in the drawer next to the silverware.”

“Right.”

“Or—no, no, wait, _with_ the silverware.”

Caroline gives her a parting glace of exasperated affection and determination. “I’ll find it.”

The door closes. Gillian takes a deep, unbelieving breath. At any given moment she never consciously thinks of happiness. Desiring it is pointless folly, acknowledging it an even more dangerous proposition. But fuck it, it’s her birthday, it’s the best birthday ever and wonderful recompense for the past ones where she got only socks and a Starbucks card or cake with her name misspelled or had to take Raff to A&E because on that particular birthday, the best gift she got was finding out he was allergic to the coconut in the cake.

Of course, the moment she sinks comfortably deeper into the bed—and as a million dust mites scream in agonized death throes—a rapid thumping ascent is heard on the stairs, the kind of heavy-footed galumphing she expects from her son. Alarmed, she sits up, tucks the sheet around her chest—and sags with relief when bursting through the door is Caroline, a gorgeous St. Bernard bearing not a cask of brandy but a bottle of Malbec and two glasses.

“I have bad news and good news,” Caroline says breathlessly.

“Did Elizabeth Taylor get in the house again?”

Caroline stares blankly. “What?”

“She can unlock the back door. Right clever she is—shit, did she eat my teacakes?”

“Gillian.”

“Eh?”

Caroline takes a deep breath and sits the bottle and glasses on the nightstand. “The parents are downstairs. With Raff and Ellie—oh God, nearly forgot—” Quickly she looks the bedroom door.

“W-what?” Fearfully Gillian tightens the sheet around her body.

“I suppose we’re lucky Greg didn’t show up with Calamity and Flora in tow.”

“What?” Gillian can only repeat helplessly.

“I’m in the kitchen, fetching the wine, and boom—they all pile in through the door. I suspect they were coming to surprise us, because it looked like Raff was holding a cake—”

“Hope my name’s spelled right this time.”

“Focus, please. So if they were going to surprise us, they got the surprise instead—me, dressing gown flapping wide open, bits and bobs on full display.”

Gillian takes a moment to admire the bits and bobs, now seen from a different angle and with a bit of chiaroscuro here and there, adding delicious depth to the loveliness on display and inciting thoughts of mouth and hands exploring the shadows therein.

“Focus!” Caroline barks.

She flinches. “Focus on what? That we’re completely f-fucked? I mean, did, did anyone say anything?”

“They stared at me, I stared at them—and, well, you know me.”

“You ran like hell.”

“Yep.” Still breathless, Caroline flops down on the bed.

Gillian stares at the ceiling, gives it a minute to all sink in some more, maybe it’s not as bad as they think, maybe—nope, still completely fucked. “You said there was good news.”

Caroline rallies a smile. “I found the corkscrew.” She pulls it out of the dressing gown pocket and, with renewed hedonistic focus, sets in on uncorking the wine.

“We’re still fucked,” Gillian says.

“I know.” Mocking and loud, the cork pops.

As does Gillian: “Why can’t we have nice things? Eh? All I wanted was one nice day alone with you. That’s all. I just wanted a good b-birthday for once. Shit. I knew I would jinx it somehow, jinx myself, jinx us. It’s just—I can’t ever bloody win. Ever. Now all this, with everyone upset and oh God, if I’ve given my Dad a heart attack I’ll never forgive myself and—” Humming sympathetically, Caroline presses a glass of wine in her hand. Without thinking she gulps it down and, with lips quivering and tongue lathed in gold, her mouth has an exquisite orgasm. “—oh sweet, sweet heavenly Jesus Christ my lord and savior, this is—f-f—” The Malbec leaves her so incapacitated she can’t even manage to get out a _fuck._

Pleased, Caroline grins. “Right? It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, wow. God. Worth whatever you paid for it. I’m—oh God.”

The last time Gillian rhapsodized aloud an _oh God_ was approximately an hour and fifteen minutes ago and Caroline had a more direct hand in that, so to speak, hence a moment of insecurity: “I’m trying not to be jealous.”

“Don’t be. If you were a wine _, you’d be this wine_.”

Gillian can tell she doesn’t know how to take this passionate compliment, because the response is a grunted “budge over.” She settles in next to Gillian, propped against the headboard, and inhales the Malbec with a contented sigh.

“What’s the plan, Batman?”

“Maybe we can wait them out,” Caroline spitballs. “It could be our own personal Stalingrad.”

“You forget your mum is quite the tactician. They could fake us out. Pretend to leave, but Celia will stay behind, and when we go downstairs—BAM!—she will kill us both.”

“Well. I’m not going anywhere near those people until I’m thoroughly drunk.”

“Now that’s a plan I can support. I’ve got crisps in case we get peckish.”

“Crisps.”

“Yeah. In the nightstand.”

“You have crisps in your nightstand.”

“You act like that’s weird.”

“No, just part of the endless fascination that is you.”

“Say—what was that play, stupid fucking French thing, about people trapped in a room and it’s like, hell or limbo or something?”

“Sartre. _No Exit_. ‘Hell is other people,’ the line goes. Are you saying you’re trapped in hell?”

“Christ no. Hell is downstairs.”

“Hell is bloody stupid old people who don’t do what they’re told. Well. Could be a long wait. That said, I can—think of some things we might do to kill the time. Can’t you?”

Gillian smiles. “Have I ever told you I have a leather harness?”


End file.
